


For Business or Pleasure

by Askellie (NadaNine)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Alternate Universe - Officefell, Alternate Universe - Underfell, CEO/Office AU, Fellcest - Freeform, Fontcest, M/M, Office Sex, Slow Burn, This is such a silly AU idea but i love it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2018-07-16 17:45:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 47,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7277755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NadaNine/pseuds/Askellie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sans isn't sure he really still wants any part in Gaster's corporate empire, but unfortunately Papyrus has finally come home to take the reigns of the company and isn't about to let him go so easily.</p><p>CEO/Office AU based on eli-sin-g's tumblr art.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [eli-sin-g's](http://http://eli-sin-g.tumblr.com/) CEO/Office AU (go look at the gorgeous art, guys, it's great). I couldn't leave the idea alone, so now you shall all be subjected to all this quality office action with highlights such as Sans filing reports at lightning speed and spending an hour on the phone with HR trying to convince someone to get him a chair high enough that he can actually see over his desk.
> 
> (There may also be loud, incestual sex happening in the CEO's soundproofed office.)
> 
> The characters are all based specifically on the Underfell AU, although given the nature of eli-sin-g's art, there may be visiting cameos from the Canon and Swap brothers as well. We shall see.

“Hey, did you hear?”

Sans cracked open an eye, but otherwise remained stationary, not yet willing to let the noisy lab techs successfully rouse him from sleep. His messy stacks of calculations had grown plump enough to provide a satisfactory pillow, and these days his impromptu naps barely even warranted an exasperated eye-roll from his co-workers. 

His eye-socket was just creaking closed again when the excitable voice continued, “The CEO collapsed in a meeting today.”

Sans's eye snapped open again, and this time his stillness was rigid. Had the techs not noticed him there? Maybe they didn't care? Hell, if they were part of the newest intake, they might not even know who he was.

“Wow, really?” The other tech sounded almost excited, like the event was worthy of some sort of celebration. Sans idly wondered if it was. “What happened?”

“Dunno. Apparently he was in a Board Meeting and he just fell down.”

“Fell down!?” Sans flinched at the sudden spike of noise as much as from the words. He turned to stare, mouth half-open in objection because there was no fucking way the head of their company would just keel over without warning. There were always signs, and though they weren't on the best of terms these days, surely Sans would have been told-!

The speaker, a human, looked appropriately sheepish at the sudden attention. “Ah! Shit, sorry. I mean _collapsed_. Not, um, 'falling down' like you monsters do...”

Her companion was a monster who now looked entirely unimpressed. “Sheesh, don't say things like that! What a mess that would be. The company might just fall apart, since-”

The monster cast a sudden aghast look at Sans, suddenly recognising him, and was swift to begin herding their loud-mouthed companion out of the room. “Sorry, sir! Didn't mean to disturb you! We'll just be on our way! Ahaha...”

The human threw a confused look back at him, probably wondering why her friend suddenly referred to him as 'sir' when Alphys was the only one in the lab with any seniority. Sans watched them go without comment, his teeth clenched together so harshly they ached. Once they were gone, he stared back down at his calculations, considering whether he should try pick up where he left off, or maybe whether he should just plant his skull right back down on the desk and try sleep again.

He couldn't successfully convince himself to do either. His heard whirled with the snippet of that overhead conversation, completely unsettled. Fallen down. Feh. Yeah right.

The afternoon was stretching out before him, endless and unpromising. What he needed was coffee. A shit-ton of it. With the correct dose he could perhaps reach that miraculous pinnacle of caffeinated momentum that would let him get wrapped up in his work for the rest of the day and hopefully not be able to think of anything else. With a grumble, he straightened his lab coat and stomped off towards the small break-room, which also constituted as his second favourite nap-spot. If he couldn't reach caffeine nirvana then at least maybe he could sleep off the resulting jittery crash.

He received the text halfway into his second cup of coffee, and nearly spat the drink out across the floor.

COME TO CEO'S OFFICE. URGENT.

Sans stared at the text for a long minute, just fighting down unexpected emotion. Then he savagely shoved the phone into his pocket and forced himself to walk at a reasonable pace towards the elevator. He wouldn't run; not for that bastard, even if he _had_ fallen down.

* * *

Sans hadn't been to the upper floors in a long time. He'd almost forgotten what it was like up here, with warm sunlight streaming in through the enormous windows. The air smelled fresh and clean, not of the harsh, recycled air of the lab, and there was a constant babble of background noise as people answered their phones, chatted around their cubicles or called urgent instructions to their assistants. 

Sans winced. After so long in the stark, sombre atmosphere of the lab, he found all the noise a little abrasive. He hunched further into his labcoat, keeping his eyes down and his expression unapproachable as he walked towards the special-access elevator. You couldn't access the CEO's office from the regular elevators. Those were for peons. The Boss had a special lift all to himself, off-limits except by special invitation. 

Usually there was only one guard beside the lift to the CEO elevator. Today there were four, and Sans fought to keep his face inscrutable. These days, HR didn't bother to send out a warning email to the staff whenever they received a new threat letter. Those happened pretty much every day, and now the standard employment contract came with a waiver to ensure everyone knew what sort of risks they were taking when entering the work-force of the biggest monster-run company in the country. 

Three of the guards tensed at his approach, but Undyne gave him her familiar, aggressive leer. “Hey shorty. You took your damn time getting here.”

Normally he'd tell her to fuck off, but while he could sometimes get away with mouthing off to her in private (she seemed to find it hilarious), she didn't take any disrespect in front of her subordinates. Besides, he needed her intel for once. “What the hell is going on? Is he-?”

Undyne made a sharp, abortive motion, silencing his questions. A few of the nearest cubicles had onlookers peering over their walls until Undyne shot them an ugly glare. She jerked a thumb towards the elevator. “You'll hear all about it upstairs. Get going!”

He was hustled into the elevator, and she entered a complicated sequence into the interface beside the door before giving him what might have been either a bolstering smile or a silent promise to eviscerate him if he misbehaved. Possibly both. The door closed, and he realised a moment too late that she wasn't going to join him for the journey as she stepped back out onto the floor, leaving him alone in the claustrophobic space.

It wasn't a small elevator by any means, built to carry a full security unit if required, but even alone Sans still found it stifling. Too many times he'd found himself cornered here, with nothing to hide behind as he endured yet another brutal analysis of each and every one of his failings. Bad memories roiled through him, and he could almost feel the oppressive weight of that other presence, full of disgust and bitter disapproval. Anxious sweat formed on his bones, cold and clammy. Sans fought to keep his breathing steady.

The journey didn't last more than a few seconds, but it was an incredible relief when the door finally opened again. Sans lunged out into the foyer, frantically trying to smother the rattling of his bones, but thankfully there's no one around to see his graceless entrance. The desk that belonged to the CEO's personal secretary looked wrong somehow, and after a few seconds of staring Sans realised that he'd never seen the station empty. The monster who normally manned it, whose Sans couldn't remember their name off the top of his head, was as much a permanent fixture of the office as the paintings on the wall and the tiles on the floor. Finding it empty was incredibly disconcerting, almost more so than the unexpected summons and Undyne's mysterious evasion. 

What the hell was going on?

He'd meant to take a few minutes to compose himself, since the secretary always made him wait even if there was no reason to whatsoever, but all the evidence was starting to point to something truly catastrophic having happened while he was sheltered obliviously down in the lab. He lurched for the door to the CEO's office, completely forgetting himself and all propriety. He didn't even knock, just shoved the door open as if he expected it to resist his entrance. It popped open with a slam, almost startling him with its suddenness.

His eyes darted around the room, taking it all in. “S-sir?”

The high-backed leather chair behind the desk turned slowly to face him. Sans's SOUL seemed to soar and dive at the same time in a frankly impossible acrobatic manoeuvre.

It wasn't Gaster sitting behind his desk, his scarred face twisted in its usual expression of apathy.

It was Papyrus.

Sans stood frozen in disbelief. Papyrus stared back, but in a more calculated fashion, his eyelights sweeping over Sans with uncomfortable intensity. Sans was made acutely aware of the dubious stains on his labcoat that had never washed out, and the dirty, tattered sneakers he wore because they were comfortable and fuck company policy anyway. His brother, meanwhile, was immaculate in a crisply pressed suit and tie. He sat in Gaster's chair looking as if he belonged there.

(He did, Sans reminded himself.)

(God. Had it really been two years already?)

“Hello, brother,” Papyrus said, his voice so smooth and dispassionate they might as well have seen each other just yesterday. 

Sans blurted out an embarrassing sound; a mixture of all his questions trying to come out at once and a startled whine because this was just about the last thing he was prepared to deal with. He tried to cover it with a cough, face burning under his brother's stern gaze and the subtle arch of his brow. 

“You're...back,” he wheezed eventually, almost choking on the simple syllables.

Papyrus looked rightfully unimpressed. “Obviously.”

Sans was fucking this up already. All the things he'd planned to say to his brother, the nights he'd spent fantasising about that reunion and how he would fix things...he couldn't for the life of him remember any of it. He felt slow and stupid and useless, the way he always felt about his brother...around Gaster too. His family just seemed to bring out the worst in him.

“What happened to-” _Doctor Gaster_ , he nearly said out of habit before remembering whose company he was in. His face contorted as he struggled with the unfamiliar moniker. “Where's Dad?”

“Our father is indisposed,” Papyrus told him curtly, and for the first time Sans saw a crack in his composure and realised there was something furious and seething beneath his brother's front of calm. “I will be assuming his duties for the duration of his absence.”

So he wasn't dead, at least. Sans was pretty sure Papyrus would be upfront if that were the case. He wasn't really the coddling type. A great portion of his adrenalised tension suddenly unspooled, and Sans had to catch himself on the door frame as he suddenly felt a little light-headed. 

(How fucking dare he feel relieved after everything that bastard had-!)

Sans took a steadying breath, fingers clutching at the frayed sleeves of his labcoat. “Right. Of course. Uh. Congratulations. Boss.”

He'd always known this day was coming, even if it might turn out to be only temporary. Only one of them was suited for running Gaster's powerful empire, and it definitely wasn't Sans. He'd accepted that even before Gaster had made a point of rubbing his inadequacies in his face day after day. If Papyrus thought his older brother might make a play for his inheritance, Sans could put his mind at ease.

His brother had been made for this; honed for business the way a weapon was honed for battle, through years of careful education and Gaster's unique conditioning to strip away everything inessential and leave only a razor-sharp edge behind. Unlike Sans, Papyrus hadn't cracked under all that pressure. He'd only grown harder and more unyielding, moulded into exactly what Gaster wanted him to be.

(Something Sans could never forgive his father for.)

Papyrus inclined his head almost mechanically, accepting the praise with negligent ease. “Since I've been away for some time, I will need to be brought up to speed on all our current activities as quickly as possible. I'm appointing you to the position of Executive Assistant. Your first duty will be to summarise all the relevant files and present them to me by tomorrow.”

“Uh...” Sans gaped, caught off-guard. He'd been sure his brother had just wanted to re-establish the hierarchy and make sure Sans wasn't going to be a threat to his new position. He'd even dared to nurse the tiny hope that maybe Papyrus had wanted to inform him of their father's absence himself; the Papyrus he'd once known had still been oddly sentimental on occasion, if Gaster hadn't managed to stamp that out of him in the last two years. 

He definitely hadn't expected this conversation to turn into a promotion. Sans scraped at an eyesocket in frustration, realising with ugly clarity that Papyrus really had been gone a long time. Long enough not to have been present for Sans's disgrace and subsequent banishment to the lower levels. Papyrus obviously hadn't realised how low his brother had sunk.

“I...I'm really not the one you want for that,” he said, trying to keep the pained inflection out of his voice. He gestured to his labcoat. “I work the Lab now, you know, so-”

“Yes, I've read your file,” Papyrus interrupted curtly, selecting a manilla folder from the neat stacks on his desk and dropping it carelessly in front of him. Even upside-down, Sans could read his name along the spine of it. It was stuffed full of the ominous yellow slips the company's warning letters were printed on. “And I can safely say that, given your level of contribution to the research team, your presence won't be missed.”

Sans hadn't thought he could still blush with such humiliation and anger. Papyrus didn't get it. Sans hadn't been sent to the Lab to 'contribute' even though he probably could have. He was there because Gaster was sick of looking at him, but also couldn't bear to let Sans out from under his thumb. The position was a farce and Sans's work ethic was practically non-existent because of that. He couldn't slip his father's leash, so the only petty defiance he could manage was to be as poor at his job as possible; a permanent blight on the company's efficiency ratings. 

He dared to glare back at his brother. “You're right. I'm fucking useless. Dad always thought so too. You know, if you just go ahead and fire me already you'll already have more balls than he ever did.”

The words made him feel both giddy and ill. Shit, had he really just talked back to his new boss? After all that hard work Gaster had done to stamp the insubordination out of him too, apparently it hadn't stuck so well after all. Or maybe he was still pissed at how casually Papyrus had shrugged off that two-year absence and started ordering Sans around as if it were that easy.

For a wild moment, he wondered if Papyrus would actually do it. Unlike Gaster, he might consider Sans too much trouble to keep around. What if he could actually leave? He could go back and finish his PhD. He could actually do real science instead of the stupid busywork they kept him doing in the Lab. 

Papyrus stood, unfolding his lanky frame, and Sans shrunk in on himself because he'd almost forgotten how tall Papyrus was. Taller even than Gaster, he loomed easily over Sans – a trait that was uncomfortably reinforced as he stalked around the desk and stood before his smaller brother, his face set into a cold mask. 

“I have already told you what I expect from you. You will not disobey me, am I understood?”

His scathing tone cut Sans to the quick, and all the fight immediately drained out of him. So much for defiance. He never could argue with his brother. His resolve just crumbled under the weight of guilt and the care he couldn't even pretend not to have. He wilted further, wrapping his arms around his rib-cage. 

“L-look, I'm really not gonna be much help, Boss. They don't tell me anything these days. All my access was revoked. I don't even know what we're working on besides what goes on in the Lab.”

“So we'll both learn,” Papyrus ground out, lifting a sizable stack off the table and shoving it unceremoniously into Sans's arms. “Take the desk by the elevator. I want the extracts by tomorrow morning. Don't let me catch you sleeping or I _will_ fire you.”

The sheer weight of the files made Sans stagger. He frantically adjusted his grip to avoid dropping them. “Y-yes sir.”

Papyrus nodded, apparently satisfied. “Dismissed.”

His body moving automatically at the order, Sans stumbled out of the office only to have it close firmly behind him. He stood stupidly for a minute trying to figure out what the hell had just happened until his arms began desperately complaining against their unexpected burden. He hauled the files over to the Secretary's desk, sloppily setting the stack down on the nearest available surface.

There was none of the usual personal touches at the desk. It had been completely cleared out. All the stationery was new and untouched. It was quite spacious – downright luxurious compared to the cramped little table he kept down in the Lab, and now it was his. Papyrus had chosen _him_ , instead of exploiting the experience of their father's old secretary, who would have been able to bring the new CEO up to speed much faster. 

He cynically wondered if maybe this was just another cruel test. Maybe Papyrus was continuing their father's legacy of making Sans's life hell after all...but even bracing himself for that possible scenario, he felt a little warm at the thought that maybe Papyrus just hadn't felt like he could trust anyone else. Maybe he hadn't forgotten what Sans had promised him.

Even so, it was a hell of a task Papyrus had given him. Sans looked despairingly at the enormous stack of files before tentatively taking the first one and throwing himself into the chair, settling in to read. It was going to be a long day.


	2. Chapter 2

Six hours later, Sans was feeling absurdly grateful that his eyes were magical constructs and not actual physical organs, or he'd probably have strained something irreparably by now. Only when the blurring of his vision made the paper in front of him nigh unreadable did he dare to take a break, surfacing from the depths of the file as if he were coming up for air. He cast a hopeful glance at the rest of the stack, hoping beyond hope that maybe he'd finally put a noticeable dent in it. No such luck. He wasn't even halfway finished. 

He was going to be here all night. 

He buried his face in his hands, a low groan turning into a slurry of curses, largely directed at his brother. There was no hope of reprieve. Papyrus barely slept, and often forgot that other people needed to. Sans wasn't brave enough to try and beg the rest of the night off, particularly given how little progress he'd actually made.

It wasn't as if he hadn't been _trying_. Even if the threat of his brother's ire hadn't been hanging over his head, the files were fascinating enough in their own right. Gaster may have been a miserable father, but he was an excellent innovator, and Sans could only marvel at some of the projects he'd had their people looking into. The new hybrid energy proposal, for instance. Gaster had been reviewing the old schematics for the Core – the enormous generator that had once powered the entire monster civilisation back when they'd still been underground. The original complex had been something of a miracle, built out of literal garbage and no small amount of magical absurdity that to this day still didn't make a whole lot of sense, but those had been dark and desperate times and Gaster had somehow made it work on the back of his indomitable genius. 

Revising the original design with access to modern technology, and with a much larger projected scope of use...well, Sans had lost himself in the theory behind that research for a good hour before he realised that it would be well beyond what Papyrus would need to know and reluctantly truncated his summary without any commentary on how to improve the rates of magical energy conversion. Besides, there was a chance Gaster might see it when he came back from wherever the hell he'd disappeared to, and like hell Sans was going to offer him anything he could actually use. 

God, he missed doing real science. He'd had to force himself to set the file aside with fiercely shaking hands, swallowing back bitterness. 

Then there were the _other_ files, the ones plastered with so many confidential stamps that the red ink had seeped like bloodstains through the pages. Those were much more frustrating, because half the text had been blotted, names redacted, dates erased, reports written in vague ciphers that Sans could barely puzzle out, and what he _could_ read concerned him. The only one he was passingly familiar with was the Determination project, and only because he'd heard the lab techs gossiping about that particular horror story after the whole mess had been shut down.

Even in their vagueness, there was a lot of damning information in the reports – the kind that would have humans out for blood and ready to banish monsters back to the underground. Sans felt vaguely unsettled as he noted them down, wondering if Papyrus knew about the kinds of things their father had been up to recently, and whether he planned to continue them. 

He sighed heavily, lifting his arms overhead and stretching back until the chair teetered dangerously and his bones let loose an obscene cacophony of pops and cracks, dispelling some of his stiffness. The musical chime of the elevator's arrival almost startled him into tipping over entirely, and he hastily straightened up and attempted to look dignified as Undyne stormed in, looking unexpectedly haggard. Sans checked the time on the wall-clock. Nearly midnight.

“What are you still doing here?” he asked as if he really had any right to question her. She startled at the sound of his voice, which would have been funny except that the only reason he'd surprised her was because he was all but buried behind his stack of files. Much to his annoyance, he had to lean out from behind the desk before she actually spotted him properly, and her smile automatically widened in a vicious, toothy sneer. 

“Double shifts for everyone 'till we sort out the breech,” she told him, and despite being off her game (he'd never taken her off-guard before) she sounded almost madly gleeful about it. Trust Undyne to actually enjoy the possibility of a security threat.

Sans frowned. “What breech?”

Her single eye narrowed at him. “He didn't tell you?”

Sans blinked, trying to come up with a suitable reply to that, but Undyne was already waving dismissively. “Never mind. It's 'need-to-know' only. Look, the Boss told me to get you food. You still eat Grillby's, right?”

The change in subject was about as subtle as a brick to the face, but the greasy bag she held out to him successfully diverted his attention. The smell was ambrosial, and his stomach suddenly clenched with the reminder that he hadn't filled it with anything except the sludgy coffee from the Lab's break room. He snatched it so ferociously that Undyne actually recoiled, withdrawing her arm like she worried she might lose a few fingers to his savagery. 

“I'd kiss you if it wouldn't give me rabies,” he assured her gratefully before shoving a handful of fries in his mouth, feeling a wave of almost dizzying relief. 

Her face screwed up in disgust. “Try it and I'll rip your tongue out. Anyway, I need to check in with the Boss. He's still here?”

“Last time I checked,” Sans mumbled indifferently, fumbling around in the bottom of the bag and coming up with a burger and handful of mustard packets. Thank fuck Grillby remembered his preferences. He was only absently aware of Undyne striding forward and, shockingly, knocking respectfully on the door to Papyrus's new office before promptly ignoring etiquette and barging in before hearing any response. Unfortunately she was prudent enough to kick it closed behind her, because even with the tempting distraction of food, he would have been curious to listen in on that conversation.

He paused for a moment to listen. Neither Papyrus nor Undyne were particularly soft-spoken individuals, and most conversations between them tended to escalate even more so, but the office must have been sound-proofed. Sans couldn't hear a thing. Damn.

His eyes slid away and fell on the computer instead. Absently angling his body to keep the burger's grease from dripping onto anything important, he reached out a salt-slicked finger and absently tapped a few keys to bring up the company's internal communications. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary, not even the usual congenial announcement for employees to be more careful than usual in case of an emergency. Sans scowled into another mouthful of burger, but couldn't say he was entirely surprised. Gaster liked to keep his employees calm and ignorant, like a flock of complacent sheep, and Sans had come not to expect any special treatment. Apparently Papyrus had also decided to keep him out of the loop.

Fine. Whatever. If he didn't 'need-to-know' then at least he didn't have to care about it, whatever it was. His brother was welcome to that particular headache. With a few angry stabs at the keys, the computer returned to its basic menu screen, and Sans turned back to his food, which was pretty much the sole salvaging facet of an otherwise unbelievable day. 

He wasn't going to think too hard on Undyne's careless revelation that Papyrus had been the one to send her out for food. That he hadn't actually forgotten that Sans was still out here, working through the impossible stack of files, even if he'd apparently forgotten that sleep was something most people had on their agenda for this hour of the evening. It was something, he supposed. Not quite an apology for two years of absence, but still something.

* * *

Something screeched violently and unrepentantly in Sans's ear.

He startled so violently he almost fell out of his chair, one arm pinwheeling frantically for balance and the other reflexively coming up to wipe away the unconscious trail of drool that had slicked down his chin. “What!? I'm awake!”

The screaming continued, undeterred. He blinked rapidly, expecting to find Undyne jeering down at him or, worse, Papyrus looming over the desk, his face full of disappointment and pity. He found neither of those things; in fact, he was still completely alone in the office. He cast around in bewilderment for the source of the noise and eventually traced it to the phone on the corner of the desk. It was flashing angrily at him, still blaring the dial-tone version of obscenities with what seemed to be increasing volume. His head pounded just as vengefully in response.

He picked up the receiver and desperately fumbled with the buttons until he found the one that made it stop. Hopefully the click meant he'd picked up the line correctly. “Y-yes?”

“Yes, _Boss_ ,” Papyrus corrected him, his voice at typical volume which did nothing at all to help the awful headache blooming inside Sans's skull.

“Yes, Boss,” Sans repeated wearily, trying to keep the groan out of his voice. Now that he had a moment to study it, he could see the incoming line was labelled 'CEO' on the inordinately complicated looking panel. It looked like from here he had access to pretty much every phone outlet in the building, right down to the supply closet in the sub-basement level. Huh. 

“It's 7 AM. Are the extracts ready?”

Only the security staff and the maintenance teams were meant to start this early, but Sans wasn't wholly surprised that his brother was ready to go at this ungodly hour of the morning. He cast a hopeful look towards the towering printer in the corner only to see it spitting out one final page before finally winding down with all the subtlety of a jet engine coming in for a landing. At least that meant he'd only been asleep for a few minutes; just long enough to feel completely disgruntled about the rude awakening. 

“Just finished,” he answered, relieved that he wouldn't have to feed his brother any excuses. He'd hoped that slogging through the last of the chore would allow him to steal an hour of sleep before Papyrus came to hassle him about it. Apparently not.

“Bring it in,” Papyrus snapped, and hung up without a word, not so much as a 'thank you' or a 'good job'. Gaster was exactly the same. Sans sighed heavily, stumbling over to the printer and thumbing absently through the pages to make sure they were in order. Habit prompted him to shove them into a fresh binder, because leaving work unbound and unprotected down in the lab meant they were likely to end up in disorganised piles and covered in questionable substances. Alphys was very particular about that kind of thing. 

He hesitated at the door to Papyrus's office, fumbling indecisively before convincing himself it was safer to knock even if Papyrus couldn't really be expecting anybody else. Undyne had disappeared back downstairs a little after midnight, and no one else had come up unless it had been in the very short window while Sans had been asleep. Papyrus hadn't left either, but unlike Sans, he would have had the privacy to steal a proper nap if he'd been so inclined. Sans tried not to resent him for it.

“Come in,” Papyrus answered his knock, and Sans opened the door more conservatively than he had the previous day. Papyrus was back behind the table, chin resting on his steepled fingers. His workspace was completely clean, Sans noted sourly. No evidence of any actual work, unlike the hideous mess Sans had left on the desk outside. 

Still, he allowed himself a small swagger of pride as he stepped forward and presented the folder with a little flourish. “There ya go, Boss. A full primer of everything we've got going on at the moment through all departments, organised alphabetically.”

Papyrus tapped one elegant phalange on the corner of the document, arching one of the ridges above his eyesocket. “You're sure you covered all of them?”

“Absolutely,” Sans insisted, but suddenly felt a lot less certain than he sounded. No, damnit, he was sure he'd gone through every one of those stupid files, even if the last couple had sort of blurred together. He couldn't actually remember what he'd written about them now, but he was sure it had made sense at the time...

Shit. Suddenly he wanted to snatch the file back and read it again properly just to make sure he hadn't filled the last couple of pages with sleep-deprived nonsense, but Papyrus was already flicking it open and staring down at the first page. 

Maybe he could make a run for it before Papyrus got to the end? Sans cast a hopeful glance back at the door, but he hadn't actually been properly dismissed yet. Papyrus seemed to be ignoring him entirely in favour of the file, his eyes narrowed as they moved back and forth, reading through Sans's notes. 

“Uh...” He hoped the prompt would get his brother's attention, but Papyrus didn't even look up. Was Sans really that easy to overlook? Geeze. “Boss?”

Papyrus glanced up at him, and Sans resisted the urge to flinch. His knees felt a little unsteady. “Do you, ah...still need me, or...?”

Papyrus seemed to consider, frowning. “I might have questions. Stay.”

Sans tried not to wilt. “Okay...”

“But sit, before you fall over,” Papyrus added with an edge of exasperation, gesturing pointedly to the elegant couch that took up the far corner of the room. “You look pitiful.”

Sans snorted, but insults of that calibre were easy enough to shrug off these days. He'd heard worse. “Sorry, Boss. Just bone-tired, you know. Heh.”

Papyrus made a very satisfying sound of disgust. At least Sans could still get his petty kicks from the horrible puns his brother hated. 

He staggered gratefully over to the couch. It must have been a new addition. He didn't remember it from any of his previous visits to Gaster's office, and it seemed almost out of place. Gaster tended to keep his office impersonal, almost sterile, the way he kept his lab. There were no personal touches, especially none that hinted at his relationship with his sons (strained) or his hobbies (non-existent). The only indulgence was the great set of shelves across one wall, full of an array of books that Sans had secretly coveted once upon a time. Maybe the couch had been brought in to have a better seat from which to appreciate them, because when Sans flopped down into it he found that it was much more comfortable than its contemporary exterior suggested. The cushions were unexpectedly plush, padded in a way that was much more accommodating of the sharp angles of his bones than a lot of human-crafted furniture tended to be.

He was just lifting himself out of his folded slump into a slightly more dignified position when a shadow of movement crossed his vision, too sudden and too close. He squawked, skittering way to the far end of the couch as Papyrus promptly sat down beside him unannounced. He gave Sans's dumbfounded expression a dispassionate stare.

“This chair is more comfortable,” Papyrus informed him archly, and apparently that was all the explanation he cared to give as he turned away from Sans and went back to ignoring him entirely in favour of the document now spread across his lap. 

Well, Sans couldn't argue with that, exactly, but he still felt a little unnerved to have Papyrus suddenly so close. It felt awkward. Then again, despite his impressively assured exterior, Sans couldn't imagine Papyrus felt entirely at ease in their father's chair, so maybe it wasn't all that odd.

He wasn't looking at Sans, but that just gave Sans the uninvited but not entirely unwelcome opportunity to look at Papyrus without any imposing distractions. Two years hadn't changed his brother much, outwardly. It wasn't a long time, by the measure of skeleton lifespans, but Papyrus had been just on the cusp of adulthood the last time Sans had seen him. Maybe the planes of his face were a little more angular now. A little sharper. Maybe his jaw had turned a little more square, losing the child-like softness of mouldable young bones. 

But the way he moved...it was so foreign to Sans now. He remembered a Papyrus who still stumbled over his ungainly long legs, who had to move with deliberate care, unsure of his growing strength. He remembered a Papyrus whose aura buzzed with a fierce energy and tended to splutter in angry bursts. 

God, he remembered his brother _furious_ , coldly telling Sans that Sans would just hold him back.

He remembered that past, piteous glare before Papyrus had turned away from him, his shoulders squared and head still held high even as Sans's world had crumbled beneath him.

This Papyrus was calm and cold by comparison. Almost a stranger, so much so that Sans couldn't quite reconcile the changes and recapture those precise feelings of hurt and anguish he'd felt the day Papyrus had left. Those emotions felt distant beneath the much more pressing sentiments of disoriented surprise and flustered deference. At least the structure of their relative positions meant he didn't have to think too hard about how to react. Papyrus gave the orders and he would obey. That simplified things, for the most part.

And maybe it was just going to be that simple, he thought, still staring at his brother's concentrating profile but letting himself lean more heavily on the backrest of the couch. Papyrus would probably keep him around just long enough to get oriented, plumb him for every bit of information Sans still knew about the inner workings of the company, and then Sans would wind up back in the labs, or maybe out on the street if his little brother proved to be a greater, more merciless replacement for their father. He had the potential for it, as Gaster had so smugly reminded him again and again. 

Papyrus never let anything hold him back, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come play with me at [askellie.tumblr.com](http://askellie.tumblr.com)!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: There was a scene missing at the beginning of this chapter that I accidentally missed! Sorry about that guys. ;A; Thank you to ChocoboFangirl for pointing it out!
> 
> For early updates, come join me on my tumblr at [askellie.tumblr.com](askellie.tumblr.com)!

There was something inherently soothing about the gentle scrape of bone on bone. It had a very particular quality, since bone had a slightly porous texture that made it sound very unlike other materials under friction. That quiet rasp had an almost addictive quality in his younger years, when the sound of his own fingers clawing down the ladder of his ribs, dragging mercilessly and scratching up dust, had been one of the few things that could pull him back from the brink of despair, physical pain overriding the emotional torment. Though he'd eased back from some of his more self-destructive habits, that sound still filled him with a quiet sense of satisfaction.

_Scritch scritch scritch._

Sans roused slowly, feeling oddly relaxed. His vision was tilted sideways. He was lying down, his skull pillowed on something none-too-soft, but he felt comfortable nonetheless. Enough that the details of the room only came to him in staggered, reluctant stages. He wasn't in the lab. He was still in Gaster's office.

_Scritch scritch scritch._

He didn't remember falling asleep, but that wasn't so unusual for him. His poor sleeping habits had a tendency to catch up with him at inopportune moments, resulting in a graceless crash. He blamed the stupid sofa. It was unfairly accommodating, supporting his body in all the right places with the perfect amount of pressure.

_Scritch scratch scritch._

Realisation struck him a moment later hard enough that he would have flinched if his immediate panic response wasn't to freeze in horror. Fuck, he'd still been in the meeting with Papyrus. Papyrus was probably-!

_Scritch scritch._

...probably...

_Scriiiiiiiiiiitch._

...probably still in exactly the same spot beside him, except now he had Sans's skull propped up on his knee, and Sans belatedly realised that the source of the pleasant scraping sound and the gentle pressure at his temple was that of his brother's sharpened phalanges tracing idle patterns on the side of Sans's skull. Every so often the noise was interspersed with the rustle of pages turning, suggesting his brother was still reading and apparently unaware that Sans was awake and quietly freaking out.

Shit, _shit_ , what should he do?

Curling into a ball and dying of shame sounded like a tempting option. Rolling off the couch and onto the floor, kneeling at his brother's feet and begging for forgiveness seemed slightly more viable, but the longer he hesitated to accept his fate, the more he realised that Papyrus wasn't radiating anything like displeasure. He certainly had plenty of opportunity to just shove Sans off his lap and be done with it. Instead the light scrabbling of his fingers went on uninterrupted. Maybe his brother liked the sound of it too?

An angry buzz of noise almost startled him into motion, but thankfully his self-preservation instincts had decided his chances were better if he feigned unconsciousness. Papyrus's leg jostled him as his brother pulled out his furiously vibrating cell-phone and answered it. “Yes?”

Fuck. Now he had inadvertent eavesdropping to add to his list of sins, but he couldn't help straining his hearing to try and catch the voice on the other end of the line. Unfortunately they seemed quite soft-spoken, so the most he could determine was that it probably wasn't Undyne.

“I don't care,” was Papyrus's curt response to an unheard statement. “Just bring all the data you've found to the meeting and we'll discuss it....No, he won't be there. He won't be returning for some time.”

It was funny how in the particular way Papyrus said that, Sans knew he was referring to Gaster. It was an odd combination of both reverence and distaste. Sans knew that feeling well.

“I have all the required authorisation,” Papyrus said after another anxious interval. “Top level clearance. You will bring me everything.”

If he tried not to focus the words, but on the cadence, Sans thought the murmur on the other end of the line sounded familiar in its babbling stutter. Alphys, perhaps? It made sense, if Papyrus was trying to look into the projects Sans had ear-marked as being poorly documented and possibly questionable, especially if Alphys was concerned about Gaster's interference in it. He was suddenly almost grateful not to be embroiled in whatever secrecy-ridden shit-storm was brewing in his father's absence.

...except that if Papyrus really intended to give Sans that promotion, he might end up getting his hands dirty after all. Damn.

“We start in ten minutes,” Papyrus finally snapped, shutting up the tirade on the other end of the line. “Don't be late.”

He ended the call with a soft growl, leaving a discomforting silence. The movement of Papyrus's fingers had stopped now, but they were resting in stillness on the curve of Sans's temple which felt much more unnerving. Sans wondered if this would be an appropriate moment to pantomime 'waking up' so he could get the hell out of here before his brother's temper hit its breaking point, but Papyrus acted first. With a deep but surprisingly reserved sigh, he moved to lift Sans's head from his lap. Sans immediately ensured his eyes were closed and his face was as slack as possible, though a part of him was still sure this would be the moment when Papyrus shoved him onto the floor. Instead he found his body being set gently back down in the warm space his brother had left behind as Papyrus climbed to his feet.

Sans waited uncertainly, sure that he could feel his brother's suspicious gaze upon him. He broke out in a cold sweat trying to force his breath to stay even. After a few moments consideration, he heard a rustle of cloth, and suddenly an unexpected weight draped over him. Apparently satisfied, Papyrus's lithe, distinctive strides carried him out of the office, leaving Sans alone at last.

Sans waited another minute before he dared to move, one eye tentatively cracking open and verifying that Papyrus was really gone, then shifting in confusion to what he'd left behind.

It was his jacket.

For a moment Sans just stared at it, bewildered, since it wasn't really warm enough in the office to justify the need to remove it (particularly since skeletons weren't all that sensitive to temperature), and wondering at his brother's sudden, nonsensical need to use Sans's body as a coat-rack. Then he realised that the way it had been left rendered the garment a makeshift blanket, long enough to cover most of Sans's small frame.

At least that implied his unexpected nap had the Boss's blessing, he thought to himself almost hysterically, forcing down amusement and some other strong emotion that he didn't want to analyse too closely. He really should get up, but now that the jacket was on him, it felt disrespectful to remove it, as if he'd be refusing an order, so instead he stayed still. The inner lining was made of silky satin. It had captured the residual heat of his brother's body, leaving him surrounded in a cocoon of warmth that, while not strictly necessary, was still nice.

He really didn't understand his brother at all, but that was nothing new.

* * *

“Sans, wake up!”

There was an unceremonious thunk as the corner of the couch closest to Sans's head was kicked, and the nearness of the impact had him awake and flailing so hard he fell right onto the floor.

“AUGH. Goddamnit-” Sans groaned into the carpet before blearily lifted his head.

A pair of pointed leather shoes crossed his vision, too close for comfort. “You've had two hours to sleep. That's more than enough.”

“Uuuuugh.” Somehow, unfairly, he felt much worse now than the first time he'd jolted awake, probably because his body had been just on the verge of relaxing into proper, deep sleep for the first time in god knew how long. Sans arduously sat back onto his heels only to have a thick stack of files shoved into his face. “Wha-?”

“I need you to audit these,” Papyrus ordered briskly, shaking them under Sans's nose until the smaller skeleton reluctantly took them. “Verify all the reports and signatures. Trace the financials. There's lots of missing pages. I want them all.”

Sans drew them back to an appropriate reading distance. The first file was one of those he'd flagged for his brother's attention. He imagined the rest were the same, and found himself frowning, wondering why his brother seemed so intent on digging through what had probably been their father's pet projects. It may just have been for completion's sake – Papyrus was distinctly finicky about his possessions, his appearance...and his work, of course. Always striving for greatness.

“Uh...” Sans's thought processes were rebooting slowly after his nap, leaving him feeling unbalanced. “A lot of these were authorised by the...former CEO. I won't have clearance-”

Papyrus waved a hand dismissively. “You'll have it. I'll be restoring your previous privileges, and for anything else, bring it to my attention.”

“R-right.” Papyrus really was serious about that promotion then. Geeze. Sans fumbled for something to say to that and realised there wasn't anything that wouldn't come out with a disproportionate amount of sentiment – exactly the kind of response his brother hated. Instead he set the files down in his lap and attempted to look appropriately reserved and respectful. “Need anything else, Boss?”

Papyrus paused, looking down at him, and as seconds passed without response Sans felt himself flushing, suddenly feeling like that had been the wrong question to ask while he was still down on his knees, hunched at his brother's feet with the loaned jacket draped across his shoulders like a cape. He should have at least stood up first, so he didn't look like a complete, pathetic idiot kneeling on the floor.

He hadn't had the chance to notice before, but beneath the jacket, Papyrus was wearing a soft sweater in a deep aubergine shade that folded snugly around his neck bones and clung with just the right amount of tightness to emphasise his leanness without overstating the skeletal fragility of the bones beneath it. There was nothing particularly flashy about it – actually, it was quite reserved compared to some of the suits he'd formerly seen his brother in, during the years when Mettaton's influence in monster fashion has been at its height – but Papyrus had never needed much embellishment to look striking. He'd somehow inherited all of the beneficial genes from Gaster: his intimidating height, his broad shoulders, his piercing, angular eye sockets. Sans always felt lacking next to his brother, but rather than jealousy, he only felt a faint sense of awe.

Papyrus's eyelights were focused on him with uncomfortable intensity, his expression completely unreadable, but the harsh lines of his face made Sans imagine he saw the same, cutting disapproval he'd often read on Gaster's face-

Except that, unexpectedly, Papyrus smirked at him, his sharp features moulding into amusement. “Not just now, thank you, Sans.”

The abrupt shift in his brother's mood was almost enough to make him gape, except then he really would look like an idiot. Moving jerkily, still floored by shock and the tingling numbness of oversleeping, Sans lurched to his feet, fumbling to juggle the files and snatch the jacket before it fell as his movement dislodged it. “Uh...your jacket...”

Papyrus had already turned away, heading back towards the desk. He didn't look back as he spoke. “Keep it. You look unprofessional.”

Sans glanced down. He'd removed his lab coat during the evening, forgetting how he'd come to rely on it to hide the frayed threads in his sleeve and the odd scorch marks that marred this particular shirt. What was suitable for the laboratory wasn't really appropriate for work on the upper floors.

“S-sorry,” Sans said, clutching it to his chest and heading for the door. He hesitated just at the exit, pulled up by his conscience. He should say it. Even Papyrus had said it. Go on. It wouldn't kill him.

“Thanks, Boss,” he blurted, and then fled before he could see whatever reaction Papyrus might give him.

* * *

The desk out by the elevator didn't really feel like his, but it was the closest thing he had to a refuge. Sans carefully put his brother's jacket aside and then walled himself in behind his files, trying to bury himself in work rather than stupid self-recriminations.

He barely managed to last an hour before fervently giving up. He was starving. He hadn't slept properly. He wasn't going to get anywhere with the financials without a long nap and a boatload of caffeine, but maybe he could track down the missing papers and detour through the cafeteria while he was at it. He hedged a glance over the protective stacks of paper, but his brother's office was still closed and indifferent to his scrutiny. He was technically still going to be working, so surely Boss wouldn't mind...

Somehow he still felt guilty of truancy as he stood up, absently tugging at his shirt as he was reminded of Papyrus's accusation of unprofessional. He hesitated, picking up his brother's jacket again and slipping it on.

...Nope, it just made him look even more ridiculous. The sleeves came down over his hands and the length of the jacket nearly reached his knee. The only upside was the pleasantly silky interior that he found himself faintly considering taking another nap in later before he hastily shed the garment, feeling flustered at his own thought. Instead he pulled on his labcoat again, since it covered up the stains on his shirt and was probably just as good at looking respectable. People didn't tend to argue with a guy who looked like he knew science.

The elevator opened instantly when he pressed the button, which he supposed was only to be expected considering it was on standby for the CEO only. He hesitantly pressed the button for level twelve and felt a a flush of victory when the elevator responded with a pleasing chime and immediately began to move.

He was nearly away scot free until the elevator abruptly came to a stop three floors later, opening up to reveal Undyne's sour, toothy expression. “Where are you going?”

“What the hell, Undyne?” Sans snapped, feeling startled and unnervingly cornered in the tiny lift. He squinted at her, wondering why it felt like she'd been waiting for him. “I'm getting lunch.”

She glanced down at her watch, unimpressed. “It's early.”

“I missed breakfast.” Smacking the button to close the door didn't seem to be working while she was standing in front of it. He gave her a testy look. “Move already.”

She returned his look with equal fervour, baring her teeth. “I'll send someone to bring you something. Go back upstairs.”

“I can get my own food, jesus fuck!” Maybe he could shove her out of the way? He eyed her, considering it, and apparently she could read his mind because she smirked at him, her single eye daring him to try it. Hmm. Nope. Bad idea.

He was about to ask her what the fuck her problem was when he caught sight of two burly figures walking through the corridor behind her. They were both in Hazmat suits, obscuring their features and species although they were both shaped like typical humanoids. His mouth clicked shut as he stared. Undyne glanced back, swearing softly, and promptly stepped into the lift, letting the door close behind her.

Sans glared, bewildered. “What the hell is going on?”

“Accident,” she said shortly. “They think there's some kind of contaminant loose in the building.”

“They _think_?” Sans repeated, because seriously, _what the fuck._ Did something escape from the Labs? “What sort of contaminant are we talking? Something chemical?”

“Something magical,” Undyne replied with a shrug that was far too blasé for Sans's comfort. “Dunno the details. Boss thinks it's nothing, but the suits are insisting so they got people in to run some tests just to be safe.”

“Holy hell.” Sans rubbed a hand over his eye-socket, feeling jarred. “And no one thought to mention this?”

“Need-to-know basis only,” Undyne retorted blandly. “Besides, they haven't actually found anything yet.”

“ _Yet_ ,” Sans echoed mockingly, because that was a pretty stupid way of thinking of it.

“Don't get your panties in a twist,” she sneered back. “Building's mostly evacuated. The Board is taking a day to 'reorganise and evaluate the internal structure of the company' now that the new Boss is in charge.”

Sans snorted. “People actually bought that?”

Undyne shrugged. “It's a paid day off. No one's complaining. If everything checks out they'll be back in tomorrow and everything'll be peachy.”

“Right.” Sans somehow felt incredibly dubious. “And if it doesn't check out?”

Another shrug. “No idea. Depends what they find, I guess. So in the meantime, access between floors has been restricted just in case. Cafeteria's closed, so if you want food, go back upstairs and wait for it.”

“Well, geeze, thanks doll,” he drawled grumpily. “You're so kind.”

He knew better than to think she was actually giving him any choice about it.

“I should just let you starve,” Undyne hissed, hitting the button for the top floor. Apparently she intended to escort him there herself. She crossed her arms, posture stiff and upright, but now that he was looking more closely, there was more than just the usual amount of tension in her squared shoulders. He'd never actually seen her stressed before. No wonder he hadn't recognised it.

“Is there anything else you think I should know?” he asked her as the lift reached its destination. “Like, maybe you're going to tell me that Gaster being 'indisposed' and this mysterious magical whatever loose in the building are completely unrelated?”

Undyne quite literally kicked Sans out of the lift with a sharp shove of her foot to his tail bone. “See you later, loser.”

The door shut behind him with an air of finality. Sans grumbled, rubbing what felt like a forming bruise on his sacrum.

“Didn't think so,” he muttered to himself, limping back to his desk.

Well that explained some things. Like why the phones were so quiet today, and why there was nearly nothing in his emails. It was impossible to tell from the top floor how many people were actually in the building, but now that he knew it was mostly empty, the ambience seemed a hell of a lot more eerie. He sat down, finding himself staring at the formidable stack of files his brother had given him.

Was that what Papyrus was actually looking for? Clues about some mysterious magical contaminant that might have gotten loose? Something their father might have conjured up? Something he might have been harmed by? Sans wouldn't put it past Gaster to have made something of that nature, but if so, he didn't think there would be any trace of it in the company's usual records. If Gaster storied that information anywhere, it would be with--

...Did Papyrus even know about those other records?

He should, Sans guessed. Papyrus was CEO now. He had access to everything, so he should have seen... _that_. Then, did he know, and hadn't said anything to Sans about it? Like he hadn't said anything about the supposed contaminant on the lower floors. Like he hadn't said what Sans should even be looking for in the files.

Obviously his brother didn't trust him. Sans stared down at his hands, at the faded scars of former cracks scrawled across his phalanges, at the faint discolouration between the bones. Of course Papyrus didn't. That shouldn't surprise him. It definitely shouldn't hurt him.

But it kind of did.

“Fuck you too, Papyrus,” he hissed under his breath, planting his face down on the desk, abruptly losing all motivation to continue with his brother's command. Screw that. He would wait for Undyne to bring food and maybe sneak a nap in the meantime, and maybe by the time the afternoon rolled around he'd feel less bitter about being nothing more than his brother's secretary.

* * *

Sans's afternoon work ethic was patchy at best. He was spurred on by anxious periods of uncertainty, delving back through the files just to be absolutely sure he hadn't missed anything, followed by sullen periods of apathy where he couldn't convince himself that doing anything was even slightly meaningful. Undyne's promised delivery of food didn't help, and not even a brief, fitful nap helped him feel any better (though it didn't help that his new desk wasn't as good for dozing on as his old one, and he'd spurned the use of his brother's jacket for comfort out of ire).

It was a miserable afternoon, made worse when at quarter to five he received another irritating wail from the intercom followed by Papyrus's barking summons to attend him. Sans sighed, wondering briefly if he should don his lab coat again to avoid any further chiding from his brother before dismissing the idea as a lost cause. He wasn't fooling anyone, least of all Papyrus, with pretences of respectability. Besides, he stoutly told himself he didn't care what his brother thought any more.

“Come in,” Papyrus snapped at his brief, perfunctory knock, and Sans let himself into the main office. His brother was hunched over the desk, one hand on his skull like it pained him, looking typically stern but also oddly harried. Sans had the sudden suspicion that Papyrus's day had been just as aggravating, if not worse, and almost felt a rush of sympathy before reminding himself he was still pissed.

“I want an update,” Papyrus growled, not looking up from whatever complicated diagram he was poring over. “Tell me what you've found.”

Sans opened his mouth, instinct pressing him to say something appeasing even if his progress had been relatively minor before he deliberately stopped himself. He'd tried that with Gaster, once upon a time, trying to placate his father's grim, unpredictable moods and mollify his ever shifting standards before realising there was simply no pleasing him. He wasn't about to start the same habits with his brother.

So he simply shrugged. “Nothing.”

His irreverent attitude seemed to give Papyrus pause. The taller skeleton finally looked up to bore into him with fierce crimson eye-lights. His voice echoed dangerously, “Nothing?”

“I can't double-check any of the records when there's _no one here_ to validate them,” Sans bit out, tempted to give Papyrus a piece of his mind about that before reminding himself that _he didn't care_. He shrugged again, feigning nonchalance. “Plus you only gave me, what, a couple of hours? I've barely had time to index them all. I'm gonna need a hell of a lot more time to get anywhere, although it'd probably go faster if you actually told me what I'm looking for.”

The last part slipped out, sounding more resentful than Sans wanted it to, and he inwardly cursed. It never helped to get emotional around either Gaster or Papyrus. They were both seemingly impervious to Sans's feelings no matter how eloquently or sincerely he expressed them. He forced himself to bite down on any further comment, holding himself steady and trying not to visibly brace against the vicious onslaught he was sure would follow.

He knew he'd overstepped; mouthing off and letting his real opinions loose instead of staying civil and blandly accommodating. Gaster had never given him any preferential treatment, and he doubted Papyrus would either. Getting snarky with the CEO was a sure-fire way to get oneself fired, and for a wild moment Sans almost relished the possibility. He was ready. He almost wanted Papyrus to scream at him, to kick him out, to banish him back to the labs. It was gonna happen eventually anyway, once Papyrus had taken what he wanted from Sans.

And if he couldn't find anything worthwhile to take, all the better. At least then Sans wouldn't have lost anything this time around.

It looked like Papyrus was working up to an appropriately impressive explosion, but after a tense pause all the tension and aggravation drained out of him, leaving his brother looking strangely...tired?

“Of course,” Papyrus said, leaning back heavily on his chair. “I expected it would be too soon for results, I just hoped...”

He trailed off, something in his expression almost wistful. Sans watched him warily, not sure what to expect as Papyrus visibly gathered himself and turned back to his brother with a more neutral expression. “Undyne advised me of your visit to the lower floors.”

Sans said nothing, not sure if he could have withheld the scathing observation that he hadn't known any better because Papyrus hadn't told him anything...but it didn't look like his brother was working up to a reprimand. Instead he looked reluctantly chagrined, though that might have been due to the silent, judging glare Sans was levelling at him.

“I thought it best to withhold certain information from you until I had gathered all the relevant facts,” Papyrus admitted grudgingly. “I saw no point in supplying you with unverified facts, but I understand that you may not agree with my methods.”

Sans still didn't say anything. If there was one area where he most definitely outshone his brother, it was in patience. Papyrus caved to the brutal silence first, huffing in discomfort and sliding a piece of paper across the desk towards Sans. “Here. Read it.”

Sans stepped forwards and suspiciously and picked it up. It was an incredibly succinct incident report that might have been dull if not for the harrowing contents.

Three monsters dead, and one seriously injured.

The sole survivor was Gaster.

Sans stared, blankly, reading it again, but the details were incredibly sparse. The only useful details were that it had all taken place on Level 66, whose entire floor was dedicated to Gaster's private laboratory. He looked up, staring at Papyrus, aghast. “Three people _died_ and you didn't tell me?”

“There's nothing to tell!” Papyrus said, standing up with such vehemence that Sans startled backwards. Noticing his brother's cowering stance, Papyrus turns away and behan to pace instead. “I don't know why they died. I don't even know _how_ they died! There's nothing in their dust or in the lab to tell me anything about what they were doing, or what went wrong. I have spent this entire day interrogating our staff and making extremely difficult phone calls to their families and I am no closer to knowing anything!”

Beneath the layer of aggravation, Papyrus sounded sincerely upset, and Sans was reminded briefly of his once-sweet little brother who would have been actively aggrieved by such a devastating accident...and even as an adult, it was disquieting, because that kind of thing just didn't happen any more. Gaster was pedantic in his methods, and his record was spotless...aside from the DT scandal, but those who had volunteered had known the risks involved, and certainly no one had _died_.

Sans scanned the names of the deceased. Two of them he knew by reputation only. They were both monster specialists in their respective fields. One of them was a physicist, he noted sourly, someone whose theories Sans was familiar with an respected. The other had worked with Gaster on the Core years before, and was known for their engineering and chemistry expertise. The third was unknown to him, and he didn't know if that was significant or not.

He looked to his brother who was still pacing in frustration, looking at the floor as though he could burn it away with his gaze and unveil the answers he sought beneath it. Sans was at loathe to interrupt him, but now that he knew he had to ask. “And...Gaster?”

Papyrus halted his frenetic pacing, and all at once his posture seemed to slump. “He's in a coma, which thus far no medical professional has been able to satisfactorily diagnose, and from which he may not ever awaken.”

Sans blinked. His brother's tone was stiff, but flat enough that Sans wasn't sure exactly what sentiment it was hiding. To be fair, Sans wasn't sure he knew how to feel either. “Why didn't you tell me?”

Papyrus sighed deeply, scrubbing a hand over his face in a gesture that looked all too similar to the one Sans used when he was fed up with everything. “Of all the unpleasant responsibilities I've taken on in the last forty-eight hours, the one I felt least prepared to endure was...the idea that you might _relish_ our father's condition. His failure.”

That stung a little...but it also wouldn't have been entirely out of character. Sans crossed his arms, looking at the floor. “I'm not _that_ much of an asshole.”

Papyrus closed his eyes and just nodded minutely, taking a moment to compose himself, and Sans suddenly felt like shit because while Papyrus may not have been too far off the mark that once upon a time Sans would have gone out for a celebratory drink knowing that his father was on the brink of death, Papyrus had always felt differently about the man. Papyrus looked up to Gaster, admired him, even tried to emulate his stern, uptight manner and precise, demanding methods. There was every chance Gaster was dying, and yet Papyrus was here, upholding the business, keeping everything together just the way Gaster would have wanted.

Sans had a lot of complicated feelings over that realisation that he was going to need to unpack and summarily ignore later when he finally did get that drink.

He glanced at the report again, but the information it contained was extremely vague. “So is this why you had people looking for some kind of contaminant? You think they were exposed to something?”

“No,” Papyrus grumbled instantly. “That was...well, you might as well hear it for yourself.”

Papyrus turned to his computer as Sans watched blankly, and deftly clicked through a number of files before bringing up something that crackled through the speakers. A panicked, unknown voice wailed desperately.

“Sir! You have to get down here! The-” in the background, a booming screech of something mechanical deafened the microphone's input, whiting out the sound for a moment before it receded enough for the voice to be heard again, “-'s loose in the building! You have to stop it!”

The recording cut out with a ominous click. Sans felt jarred. “What the hell was that?”

“It's mentioned in the report,” Papyrus said, motioning to the paper in Sans's shaky grip. He quoted the relevant line. “During the period in which we can assume the incident took place, Doctor Alldrich summoned Doctor Gaster from a meeting to attend to some kind of disturbance.”

Doctor Alldrich was the unknown name among the three deceased. Sans squinted down at the paper. “So what did he mean? What was loose in the building?”

Papyrus gave a hiss of frustration. “I don't know. None of the management heads or chief staff seem to have any idea of what it could mean. We discussed it this morning. Doctor Alphys was concerned it could be something unleashed by the experiment, so we had the floor isolated and the entire facility investigated. Nothing was found. Undyne believed that it may have referred to some sort of intruder, raising the possibility that the incident was an act of corporate sabotage or possibly terrorism.”

Sans jerked at the statement, but Papyrus waved a hand. “Again, we've found no concrete evidence of anything. It's just a theory. Nonetheless, I thought it would be prudent to have you reassigned to the upper floors just in case.”

“Just in case of what?” Sans asked, perturbed.

Papyrus's eyesockets narrowed. “Just in case this was a targeted attack against our family, or against anyone involved in our father's research.”

Sans considered that, and then snorted in cynical amusement. “Yeah, I'm...not really either of those things these days, bro. Don't think you need to worry about that. If you wanna send me back down to the labs I'm sure--”

“No,” Papyrus snapped, cutting him off. “This isn't up for negotiation. Besides, you're more useful to me here.”

Sans wasn't entirely convinced of that, but he could tell Papyrus wasn't in the mood for any sort of reasonable discussion on the subject. He put the incident report back down on the desk. “Okay, fine.”

Papyrus stared at him intently. “I would...appreciate your assistance in getting to the bottom of this matter. If not for our father, then for those left behind by the deceased. They are asking for answers that I currently cannot give them. Will you help, brother?”

It was an apology and a request for forgiveness all in one. Sans looked away, allowing himself a crooked, self-depreciating sneer. He wasn't really so altruistic. He wouldn't have been motivated to do it just for the families of the dead or the good of the business, and definitely not for Gaster...but he would do it for Papyrus.

“Sure, Boss. I'll see what I can do.”

He didn't want to watch Papyrus's reaction too closely – the air in the room was becoming uncomfortably sentimental – but he was pretty sure his brother's broad shoulders drooped in relief. “Thank you.”

Silence reigned for a moment, but it was nearly comfortable this time, the tension temporarily unspooled. Sans was almost at loathe to disturb it, but with the weight of all that new information he was ready to collapse. “If that's everything, then I should get going.”

“You're going home?” Papyrus asked, his tone oddly intent. Sans brushed it off.

“Yep,” he lied. He was almost definitely going to a bar, probably to Grillby's, but he had no intention of telling his brother that.

“Undyne submitted her evaluation,” Papyrus said, unearthing a file from the neat stacks on his desk as Sans watched, uncomprehending. “Her advice is that until we have ascertained the probability of further threats, it would be advisable for you to be accompanied outside the facility to ensure your safety.”

Sans spluttered, an uncharitable part of him wondering if this was her petty revenge for earlier. “I...that's really not necessary. Also I'm pretty sure she's full of it.”

“She is an expert in her field,” Papyrus reminded him sternly. “Undyne seems to believe you are at risk, and I trust her instincts. In fact, she personally requested to accompany you, and since she is currently acting as my personal bodyguard, we will both escort you home.”

Sans glowered, gritting his teeth. “What if I refuse?”

Papyrus just smirked at him benevolently. “Security has been advised not to let you out of the building without an escort.”

“Right,” Sans grouched. His objection was going to be blithely ignored then. Ugh. He'd have to pay Undyne back for this later.

“We'll be leaving in fifteen minutes,” Papyrus informed him, now sounding distinctly smug. “Go collect your things. I won't tolerate your usual dawdling.”

Sans threw up his hands in exasperation. “Ugh. Fine!”

He was going to have to wait on that drink, apparently, even though he definitely needed it now more than ever. He cursed himself for being reprehensibly soft when it came to his brother's commands, and turned to stomp out of the office.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to ChocoboFangirl for pointing out that I had accidentally left out a scene from the last chapter. This has now been fixed, so if you've been reading the fic here rather than on my tumblr, make sure you don't miss it! :3 Thank you as well to all the lovely people leaving comments! They mean so much.

The car ride felt immensely awkward, though Sans suspected he was the only one who thought so. Then again, he was the one stuck in the middle of the seat between Undyne's impressively muscular thigh and his brother's broad, bony shoulder. It made logistical sense, given that he was the most compact passenger of the three, but the gesture felt overbearingly protective and Sans was having trouble keeping a lid on his irritation.

Inner-city traffic made the car-trip feel unbearably long, and it was almost a relief that Sans must have dropped off at some point because the next thing he was aware of was jolting awake against his brother's rib-cage as the car pulled to a stop.

“We're here,” the driver announced unnecessarily, making some sort of gesture at Undyne that must have meant something to her because she frowned.

“Fuckin' finally,” Sans muttered under his breath, straightening up and valiantly pretending he hadn't been nestling up against his brother's side just a moment before. Coughing slightly to cover his blatant relief, he added more loudly, “Thanks for the ride home, I guess.” Not that he'd had a choice, but, “I'll see you-”

“We're going in with you,” Undyne spoke over him blithely, unbuckling her seatbelt.

“What? No!” Sans snapped, bristling.

She just gave him a look that challenged him to try stopping her, and without another word opened the door and stepped out of the vehicle. 

“Oh for fuck's sake...” Sans struggled with his seatbelt, fumbling clumsily with the release in his haste to follow her. 

“Language, brother,” Papyrus chided mildly. He didn't seem perturbed by Undyne's sudden insistence, even though the delay was obviously going to hold him up. “I asked her to do a thorough inspection, just to be sure.”

“I don't need to be babysat,” Sans grumbled, finally figuring out the convoluted mechanism and freeing himself. He scrambled to catch up to Undyne. “Hey, Fishbreath, wait!”

She ignored him, of course, already stalking towards his apartment building, looking tense and wary. It had probably been a while since she'd been in a neighbourhood with quite so much character. Every building was an incoherent war zone of overlapping graffiti tags and swear words. All the windows had bars on them. The air smelled of fresh garbage, and Sans almost smirked at the way Undyne's nose was wrinkled in distaste. Sans himself felt right at home.

He finally caught up to her, but only because caution was making her move more slowly than usual. She glanced at him, her single eye narrowed. “You live here?”

She sounded so incredulous. Sans glared at her. “Not that it's any of your damn business, but yes. No one's making you come in. Go take the Boss home. I can handle it from here.”

“I have a job to do,” she informed him coolly, pointedly stepping past him and approaching the main entrance. With admirable courage, she twisted the handle, and then frowned when it refused to give way to her. He watched nonchalantly as she gave it a punishing rattle, confounded by the lack of an obvious lock (though there was a ragged hole in the door where one should have been; it had been ripped out a couple of months ago).

“It sticks,” he informed her after a minute, right before he could tell she was ready to resort to kicking it down. “You have to twist, lift, and push.”

She followed his instruction with frustrated vehemence, successfully managing to pry the door open even though one of the hinges gave a squeal of distress that suggested it might have popped loose again. Sans winced, but decided not to say anything. He usually went down the fire escape when he needed to leave in the mornings anyway.

The scent that wafted out of the building was indescribable. Undyne looked disturbed. Sans just shrugged, figuring the sooner she saw the place, the sooner she'd leave. “Come on.”

The inner corridors were narrow and grimy, the floors covered with something that had once been carpet but could now be easily mistaken for some kind of fungus. Everything was vaguely sticky. Sans was careful to keep his hands in his pockets and Undyne followed suit as he lead her up three flights of stairs having to jump the occasional gap and dutifully avoiding the ones he knew were loose or close to snapping. 

The light on the upper landing had been smashed again. Sans took a habitual moment to pause, scrutinising the darker corners for any signs of life before making his way to his own doorway. At least he had the one closest to the stairs so he didn't have to walk past any of his volatile neighbours to get there. He pulled out his keys and struggled through the usual dance with the three padlocks on the door, each with their own temperamental quirks, before finally getting it open. He gestured to Undyne with a mocking, elaborate bow. “Go ahead. Make yourself at home.”

She looked at him like he was gallantly inviting her to step into a meat grinder, but no one fought their way into a position like hers without having an excess of fearless aplomb. She crossed the threshold with her head held high. Sans followed more sedately, dragging his heels as he made his way into the kitchen. 

He wondered exactly what she was looking for. Lurking assassins hiding in his bathroom? Some sign of forced entry? Well, it would be hard to discern anything from the way he kept his apartment. Every room looked like it had been host to some sort of life or death struggle, old magazines and clothes strewn everywhere, suspicious stains all over the floor, dents in the walls, a thin film of dust on everything...just regular dust, of course, not monster dust. Sans hadn't lifted a finger to clean since he moved in. He hardly spent any time here anyway; only whenever he needed to catch a few hours of sleep on his ratty mattress, or whenever Grillby kicked him out of the bar and he needed another place to drink. Speaking of which...

“You want a beer?” he called out to Undyne, trying to ignore the inexplicable thuds and crunches that announced her presence in his space. It sounded like she'd found his bedroom. He wondered if he should warn her not to open his closet.

A deafening crash and a yelp of disgust informed him that his though had come too slow. He allowed himself a philosophical shrug and pulled a can from the fridge. It only worked half the time, so the can was barely any cooler than the room itself, promising an unsatisfyingly lukewarm beverage. He cracked it open and chugged half its contents with practised ease--

\--then nearly spat it back out again when he caught sight of Papyrus in the doorway. Apparently he'd followed them up instead of staying in the car like a sensible person who absolutely did not belong in this little corner of Sans's world. Sans hadn't shut the door, figuring Undyne would be gone after a quick look around, leaving his unkempt apartment open to invasion.

The expression of utter disdain on Papyrus's face made it pretty clear what he thought of the place. Sans crept forward, hands raised mollifyingly. “Uh, s-shit, Boss, you shouldn't be up here. It's not-”

“Language, Sans,” Papyrus scolded again, completely ignoring Sans's attempt to impede his progress, nearly knocking his smaller brother over as he brushed past. Each new pile of clutter and filth he found seem to darken his expression further. “This is completely unacceptable!”

“It's a security nightmare,” Undyne agreed, stepping from the back rooms with new, dubious stains splattered on her shoes. She discreetly tried to wipe them off on the side of his equally dubious couch. “All the locks are pick-able, and none of the doors or windows are secure. I think someone already broke in through the bedroom window.”

Sans snorted. “Yeah, that was just some human teenager looking for thrills. I threw them out.”

And down the stairs with perhaps a little more vehemence than the situation had called for, but the kid had startled him awake at 3am and Sans hadn't been feeling particularly charitable. Word must have gotten around, though, because it hadn't happened again since then. He wasn't sure why both Undyne and his brother were looking at him like he'd said something completely inappropriate. 

He sighed in exasperation. “It's fine. That was months ago. It's totally not related. Now you've had your look around and there's nothing here, so can you just take the Boss home already?”

Papyrus and Undyne exchanged a silent but very expressive look that Sans didn't like one bit. Undyne's mouth was thinned into a tight, dissatisfied line. Papyrus's expression was a mix of revulsion, outrage and, worst of all, sharp, judgemental scorn. 

“My professional recommendation is that your brother doesn't remain here,” Undyne said lowly, as if Sans somehow wouldn't be able to overhear it when he was standing only a few feet away. 

“Agreed,” Papyrus said, crossing his arms. “This location is completely untenable...and it's filthy.”

“Hey!” Sans objected loudly, scowling at them both. “I'm right here, you know.”

“Sans, collect anything you will need for tomorrow...for the next few days,” Papyrus ordered blithely, ignoring him. “You are not staying in this nest of vermin.”

Sans stood his ground despite the instinct to just take the easier road and comply. He had to draw the line somewhere. “No. I'm not leaving.”

Papyrus rolled his eyelights, scoffing in derision. “Sans-”

Sans didn't let him continue. His own eyelights went dark. “i s a i d n o, p a p y r u s.”

Papyrus halted, staring at him. Even Undyne looked vaguely unsettled by his harrowing tone. It was grimly satisfying seeing them both taken aback. After an uncomfortable pause, Papyrus turned to Undyne. “Return to the car. We'll need a few minutes.”

“Right,” she agreed, looking positively relieved. She left at a clipped pace, shutting the front door forcefully on her way out, leaving Sans and his brother alone in the apartment. 

“Sans,” Papyrus began, more softly than before. “Be reasonable-”

“No, you be reasonable,” Sans hissed back, stomping forward aggressively although it only made the difference in their heights more apparent. He had to crane his head to keep looking Papyrus in the eye. “You're my Boss. You can order me around all you like at work, but not here, Papyrus. This is my own damn house. You don't get to evict me from it just because you don't like it.”

Papyrus expression looked physically pained. “It's abominable.”

“Fuck you!” Sans snarled, more loudly than he'd intended. His neighbours could probably hear every word of the conversation now. The walls weren't particularly soundproofed. “You don't get to come back into my life and pretend like you give a shit. Go ahead and let yourself out.”

He turned away, not caring to see whatever expression Papyrus might be wearing in response to his scalding dismissal. He was trying to remember where the hell he'd left his beer when Papyrus spoke up unexpectedly from behind him. “I saw the contract our father made you sign.”

The reminder gave Sans an almost instantaneous migraine. He rubbed futilely at his temple, wondering if he ignored Papyrus long enough, his brother would give up and leave. 

“I assume he made you,” Papyrus continued, unperturbed by the lack of acknowledgement. “Since no one would be senseless enough to agree to such unfavourable terms.”

He found his beer on top of the TV and took a hearty swig. It tasted worse than before, cheap and bitter. He glared balefully in his brother's direction. “What'chu want from me? A gold star for your detective work? Good job, bro. You've established that I'm probably not an idiot. But while I might be your corporate slave whenever I'm in that damn building, you don't get to say shit about whatever I do outside of it so if you think that gives you power over me here, you're out of luck. I read that contract. I know what it says.”

“That's not what-!” Papyrus paused, looking frustrated, almost flustered, even. Sans watched him gather his composure again, trying to speak calmly. “I'm not attempting to leverage you with that, I'm just telling you...I'm aware that you have been working with our Father under difficult circumstances and that your lodgings here are most likely not by choice.”

Sans snorted, sipping at his beer. Well obviously. Even Sans wasn't so far gone that he would actually choose to live in a place like this, if he'd had any alternative whatsoever. The measly stipend he was allowed as his wage barely covered food and transport costs for his extremely convoluted commute. His only consolation was that Gaster would never have dared to seek him out in a place like this, so it acted as a sort of refuge from his father; the only one he'd ever had.

“If it helps, you can think of my insistence as a means of...making amends,” Papyrus said, unexpectedly avoiding Sans's gaze. “I'm exploring avenues of having the contract annulled, but until then, I can at least offer you an improved living arrangement that wont void any of the restrictions placed on you.”

Sans stared, jaw agape. He hadn't excepted his brother to be taking such steps. Not after the trouble Gaster had gone to in order to force Sans to sign the contract in the first place. “You're...doing that?”

“Of course,” Papyrus scowled. “That contract is an abomination. I can't imagine how he made you-”

He must have seen something change in Sans's face, because he abruptly cut himself off. “So, if you would...I mean. Please. Allow me to arrange some alternative accommodations for you. Temporarily. You can change your mind at a later date, if need be, but...”

Listing to his brother struggle to be placating was almost hilarious, after everything. Sans hid a smirk, downing the rest of his drink and deftly tossed the can into the garbage pile in the corner, enjoying the way Papyrus baulked. “Fine. You twisted my arm, I guess. But only because you begged me.”

He still could change his mind later. He probably would. But right now, agreeing was the surest way to wipe that vaguely guilty expression of his little brother's face, replacing it with one of grudging relief.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been thoroughly blessed with some awesome fanart to go along with this chapter!
> 
> Eunoria [who does the amazing fic '[I give (you take)'](archiveofourown.org/works/7604395/chapters/17307250)] illustrated the adorable couch scene back in chapter 3: [here!](http://eunoriablithe.tumblr.com/post/149260846709/in-celebration-of-the-new-chapter-drew-a-little)
> 
> plll did an equally gorgeous and textured rendition of Sans and Pap on the Awesome Office Couch of Sexing: [here!](http://67.media.tumblr.com/f8c6c4b8ef5da53504f4cd6216c527b7/tumblr_ocbnhvzIbD1vnckujo1_1280.jpg)
> 
> Guys, these couch scenes make me so happy you don't even know. *______* Ahahaha, I am so lucky~<3

When his brother had insisted on finding accommodations, Sans had assumed Papyrus had meant in a hotel, not in his own damn apartment. He stood in the doorway, feeling displaced and incredibly uncomfortable.

“Is it too late to change my mind?” he asked plaintively, looking up at the high ceilings and admittedly magnificent chandelier display “You couldn’t have gotten me a place _anywhere_ else?”

“This is more efficient,” Papyrus insisted, ignoring Sans’s reluctance and striding on ahead. Sans was forced to trot after him or be left all alone in the intimidating foyer. “Having you here means Undyne can concentrate her security resources in just one location.”

Undyne had been dismissed downstairs to make her own arrangements with the building’s independent security force. Sans wondered when she got to clock off, assuming she even did. His brother was pretty ruthless with his workforce.

“I thought I was here for you to make things up to me, not to keep an eye on me,” Sans grumbled under his breath, but his voice must have carried unexpectedly well in the wide, empty spaces of the room because Papyrus flicked an indecipherable glance over his shoulder.

“That as well,” he said staunchly. “My motives are also efficient!”

Sans snorted, trying not to be amused. He should feel affronted, really. Manipulated. Taken advantage of…but Papyrus’s apartment was damn impressive, and it was going to be nice to sleep on an actual bed in a room that didn’t smell like garbage for a change.

“Fine,” he said, scrubbing at one aching eye-socket. All the naps today hadn’t been a proper substitute for real sleep. “Just show me where I’m staying.”

Papyrus seemed a little too pleased with himself as he led Sans into a luxurious bedroom that must have been prepared for his arrival, because the sheets had been recently turned and there were fresh towels stacked on a dresser next to the adjacent ensuite. Sans stumbled forward, looking around in a daze, hardly able to believe any of this was _for him_.

For all his wealth, Gaster had never made much use of it for his own comfort, or that of his sons. Their house had been large but empty of all but the barest essentials. Papyrus apparently felt very different about the use of his own independent finances (Sans was quite sure not a cent of this had come from their Father’s coffers). The headboard was elaborately carved wood with tall pillars at each coner of the bed, holding up curtain that could be drawn for privacy. All the furniture matched its grain, gleaming immaculately in the warm light and shining with inlays of silver. The plush carpet felt softer underfoot than his usual mattress, and he’d honestly have been happy to curl up in a corner if not for the fact that the bed looked so damn enticing with its silken sheets and towering stacks of pillows.

“Is this sufficient?” Papyrus asked, and there was a odd thread in his voice that was almost…anxious?

Sans turned to him, blinking uncertainly before hastily assuring, “O-of course! It’s…great.”

The last word fell a little flat, but Sans wasn’t quite sure how to take this. Was it a gift or a bribe? Was Sans here because Papyrus really wanted to help him, or because it was just an easier way on keeping watch over him? Gaster had been the same, taking away Sans’s independence with the contract, taking away his options by crippling him financially…this was a nicer cage, certainly, but Sans still felt inexplicably trapped.

“I have some business to finish up in my office before I can retire for the night,” Papyrus told him, his sharp eyes scrutinising Sans closely until the older skeleton felt too abashed to face him. He turned away, busying himself with the small bag of belongings he’d brought with him. There hadn’t been much to take, particularly not with Papyrus fervently refusing to allow him anything deemed ‘sordid’ or 'just plain disgusting’. “I assume you can settle in yourself?”

“Sure,” Sans agreed, not looking up. He tensed a little when his brother stepped closer, but Papyrus only lightly laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Welcome home, brother,” he murmured softly, but turned to leave before Sans could think up an appropriate reply past the sudden knot of emotion lodging in his throat.

* * *

The bathroom was even more impressive than the bedroom. Sans had been taking cold showers from a broken shower-head with barely any water pressure for months. On some of his worst days, he didn’t even get that far, and just gave himself a quick wipe-down with a cloth from his sorely underused sink. The shower in his new bathroom could easily have fit five skeletons his size, and it had one of those miraculous, high-powered nozzles with more settings than any one person could possibly need.

How could he have forgotten how wonderful hot water was? It was a mystery, but one he made up for by indulging in a ridiculously long shower to completely rediscover his appreciation of it. The room was full of steam by the time he was finished, and he stumbled over to his chosen towel in a happy delirium of bliss that only faltered a little when he saw a small bundle on the counter that hadn’t been there before. There was a note resting on top, scrawled in Papyrus’s distinctive handwriting.

_I NOTICE THAT YOU NEGLECTED TO BRING ANY APPROPRIATE SLEEPING ATTIRE_ , the note declared. Sans could practically hear his brother’s voice berating him. _PLEASE USE THIS INSTEAD OF SLEEPING IN YOUR CLOTHES (WHICH IS A REPREHENSIBLE HABIT!!)._

Sans wasn’t sure if he was touched by the thought or irritated by his brother’s irrepressible need to police his habits. Most likely both. With an exasperated sigh he unfolded the bundle, discovering a silky, long-sleeved ensemble that must have belonged to his brother, judging from the size. He grudgingly tried it on and discovered that, much like with the jacket from earlier, there was no conceivable way he could wear his brother’s clothing with any dignity. The shirt alone was nearly too much, coming down to nearly his knees and with the sleeves needing to be folded back several times not to fall over his wrists. The pants refused to cling to his hips and kept sliding down indiscreetly, so he swiftly gave up on them. He was covered enough to be decent, and obliging his brother was easier than the argument they would have otherwise. That would have to do.

His bones tingling with warmth from the shower, and thoroughly exhausted from the seemingly endless day, Sans stumbled towards the bed and clumsily collapsed face-first into the sheets, luxuriating in the simple pleasure of their softness. With a bit of squirming he managed to get himself close enough to the pillows to be considered respectable, sliding under the blanket and feeling thoroughly engulfed in soft, cushioning comfort.

It was wonderful.

And…completely unfamiliar, enough to be jarring.

… _fuck_.

He rolled around, trying out various positions and finding each of them unsatisfying. He even briefly considered sleeping on the floor after all, just to see if the absence of a soft surface would be enough to convince his brain that sleep was supposed to be happening, but even without resorting to that he knew the effort would be futile. For some reason, sleep only ever wanted to come to him during his waking ours. In the depths of night, when it was perfectly acceptable for unconsciousness to take him, his brain came irrepressibly alive with the urge to ruminate and reflect on everything awful in his life.

These days it had a distressing amount of material to work with.

Fuck. So Gaster was…dying? Comatose? He still didn’t know how to feel. He’d be the first person to spit on the old man’s grave when the time came, but until that final ending there was the ominous cloud of everything Gaster might yet still be holding over his head. The contract. All their research. Sans’s future, which he undoubtedly had no say in whatsoever. He’d known for some time now that Gaster was just preparing Sans to become his brother’s tool, breaking down Sans’s spirit, making sure he had no conceivable escape when the inevitable happened…

Which it had, more or less, and just as anticipated Sans was a willing sycophant, eager to do his brother’s bidding for the elusive reward of a kind word or his younger brother’s rare smile. Even knowing the trap, knowing he was just as likely to be discarded once Papyrus no longer had a need for him, he already knew he’d go along with it until the bitter end.

Wearily, he reached for his phone on the side table and squinted at the time. Still early enough. Fuckit, what he really needed was a drink to numb the jagged, painful edges of his thoughts. One beer hadn’t been nearly enough. Surely Papyrus had something in the house, if only for guests. His brother was usually prepared for everything.

Struggling out of the bed, whose comfort was almost its own form of entrapment, he quietly shuffled towards the door, feeling suddenly guilty. It wasn’t like Papyrus had confined him to the bedroom or anything. There really wasn’t any reason he couldn’t explore his temporary lodgings. He could even mostly convince himself it was simply for his own benefit, and not because he wanted a little insight into his brother’s life.

How long had Papyrus owned this apartment? A week? A year? Had he actually been back in the city before now without ever letting Sans know? He couldn’t tell. Despite the impressive furnishings, all of which did seem to match his brother’s tastes, there was a similar lack of the personal touches Gaster reviled, but that could just be Papyrus’s own pragmatic nature expressing itself. He’d never been terribly sentimental.

It didn’t take him long to find the kitchen, and once he had his stomach was quick to inform him that somehow in all confusion of the evening, dinner had been somehow overlooked. He tentatively pried open the fridge, and was confounded by a wall of plastic storage containers taking up most of the shelves. For a moment he assumed they were all various kinds of take-out – his own fridge had looked more or less the same when he’d been able to afford it – but closer inspection showed the contents of all the boxes was more or less the same.

That was an awful lot of pasta.

He scrutinised the boxes dubiously, and tentatively chose one near the front that he hoped was relatively fresh. It looked okay. When he opened it up and took a cautious sniff, it smelled okay. A little heavy on the garlic, but that wasn’t always a bad thing. The microwave required a heavy application of his scientific background to figure out, but eventually he decoded the magical sequence to make it function. He was feeling pretty damn proud of himself as he managed to scrounge up a fork from one of the drawers and took a victorious bite of his meal.

The taste was…indescribable.

For a moment he thought he’d somehow misjudged his senses and the pasta had gone bad after all, but no, Sans had tasted his fair share of questionable foods, sometimes by accident and other times from desperation. The pasta didn’t have any of the typical signs of spoiling. It wasn’t sour or rancid or speckled with mould. It was just…wrong. As wrong as a pasta could possibly be whilst still remaining faintly edible. It was crunchy and mushy and the attempted seasoning made the herbs taste bitter without enough salt to balance it. The tomatoes were strangely pulpy. The sauce was too thin. He couldn’t imagine that anyone could actually have sold this food to his brother in good faith, so he was struck with the bizarre suspicion that maybe Papyrus had made it himself.

He stared down at it, wondering if he was really desperate enough to continue and decided that maybe he could be convinced with something strong enough to wash it down with. He began to hunt through the cabinets, finding a plethora of bizarre utensils and strangely shaped crockery whose uses he couldn’t even begin to guess at before finally uncovering a small shelf of spirits below a much larger selection of sauces and cooking oils. These were probably also used for cooking, Sans guessed, thumbing through the odd collection. He bypassed two half-used bottles of red wine to reach straight for the nearly obscured bottle of brandy near the back corner. It wasn’t exactly to his taste, but it was the most potent liquor present and he doubted Papyrus used it much. He only barely resisted the temptation to start drinking it straight from the bottle, remembering belatedly that this wasn’t _his_ home, and reluctantly found himself a glass that he filled liberally.

His first drink finally took off the anxious edge that had followed him all afternoon, uncurling the near-painful rigidity in his spine. He sighed deeply, awkwardly gathering the pasta, bottle and glass to relocate himself to the nearby sofa in the adjacent lounge. The lights were pleasently dim, and even though he knew Papyrus would scold him for not eating properly at the table, he felt a lot more comfortable curled up against the armrest with a solid wall at his back.

His second drink actually started to make the pasta seem palatable. He couldn’t actually taste it past the overbearing burn of the alcohol on his tongue, which seemed to improve the experience markedly. Now the texture was just slightly questionable, but he could mostly ignore it as long as he swallowed fast and didn’t chew too much.

His third and fourth drinks sort of muddled together, and he vaguely noticed that the bottle was more than half empty. Crap. That was probably a little too much to put it back and hope Papyrus would overlook the discrepency. There was really nothing for it but to keep going and finish it so he could dispose of the evidence and find a way to smuggle another bottle in later. He kept a small float of emergency cash in his drawer at work…or he could join the regulars at Grillby’s for a couple of rounds of cards and cheat his way into a winning hand. Few things could beat a skeletal poker face and a subtle nudge of telekinetic magic, as long as he didn’t let Grillby catch him at it.

Good old Grillby. Actually, he was pretty sure the sharp-eyed bartender had actually caught on to most of Sans’s card tricks, but he’d never actually called Sans out on it. He knew a little more about Sans’s situation than most, though, thanks to a few ugly late-nights in the bar and some truly mortifying drunken rambling that he hadn’t had the wits to restrain, especially not in those first few days after Gaster had forced him to sign the contact and Sans had realised that both his scientific aspirations and career were basically over. He’d even let Sans keep his tab which he now had no fathomable means of paying back aside from with the earnings from those occasional flushed evenings over the poker table. Maybe that was why he let Sans cheat as audaciously as he did.

The memory of warmth and woodpolish, along with the heady, floating stupor of the brandy helped him drift into a light doze that might have gone right on until morning if a stern shake hadn’t snapped him out of his shallow, muddled dreams.

“Sans?”

“Huh?” he murmured, swaying slightly and almost pitching sideways until a strong grip prodded him back upright.

“What are you doing?” Papyrus asked, sounding exasperated as he tried to pry the glass and bottle from each of Sans’s hands. Both had miraculously avoided sloshing during Sans’s brief lapse of awareness. It took a few long seconds of incoherent blinking before Sans realised what he was trying to do and let them go so Papyrus could plant them on a more stable surface. “Honestly, you’re so irresponsible.”

Sans made a sound that he hoped conveyed the sentiment, _yes I am and I really don’t care_ , but he wasn’t sure his grunt was articulate enough to get the point across. He weakly batted away Papyrus’s fussing hands. “S'fine. I’m goin'ta bed.”

He staggered upright, apparently too fast for Papyrus’s liking because his brother made an agitated noise. He hovered over Sans like he thought his brother was going to fall on his face at the slightest provocation. “Let me take you. I’m not sure you can even be trusted to walk straight let alone find your way-”

“Don’t,” Sans said lowly, his voice flat and much more sober than the consumption of brandy should have allowed…but Sans had plenty of experience and he knew how to hold his drink in spite of his small size and weak constitution. The benefit of lots of practice. “Just…don’t. You left once already. I don’t want to do this over again.”

He took a hold of his brother’s hands and pointedly but gently moved them away. Even in the space of a day he was starting to notice how easily Papyrus fell back into the habit of touching him. How casually and accidentally familiar he was starting to be. They really didn’t need to fall back into bad habits.

He didn’t look at his brother’s face. He wouldn’t have had the courage to say even that much to him if he were sober, and he definitely didn’t want to think about it without the comfortable numbness of inebriation to dull the old ache of hurt. Things were going to be different now. Papyrus had already made his choice.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he muttered, trying to soften the rejection a little, because even if it had just been accidental, even if Papyrus hadn’t meant anything by it, he’d probably be offended that Sans’s stupid feelings were getting in the way once again. He stumbled away in the direction of the bedroom, hoping blurring haze lasted long enough that he could just pass out without having to remember anything at all.


	6. Chapter 6

The morning dawned bright, early and ugly, but those kind of days where commonplace for Sans now. He knew how to grit his teeth through the hangover, force himself out of bed and get going. It was easier once he started, and the dull pounding in his head was something of a blessing because it sucked up all his concentration and allowed his body to just move on auto-pilot. He was already braced for the moment he heard his brother's distinctive footsteps heading towards his room, and had the door opened before Papyrus could knock more than once.

His promptness seemed to take Papyrus aback, his brother still poised with a hand in the air to rap against the now empty space above Sans's head. “You're awake.”

It was very nearly a question, and Sans almost snorted. Then again, the last time he and Papyrus had lived together, Sans had been quite notorious about his lengthy sleep-ins.

If he didn't feel so wretched, Sans might have teased his brother for the confounded expression on his face, but he wasn't really feeling it. His dull eyelights took in the simple but extremely well-tailored suit his brother was wearing, elegant and professional – a stark reminder that Papyrus wasn't just his brother, now, but his Boss. Sans was wearing the single shirt he had that hadn't been marred by chemical burns or mustard stains. It was preserved only for those instances he had to do a presentation with one of their shareholders or corporate allies, and was the only one he imagined would pass his brother's pedantic standards. He was going to have to get used to washing it daily unless he wanted another lecture.

“Are we leaving?” he asked instead, keeping his voice as close to neutral as he could. His dour mood wasn't really Papyrus's fault, and he didn't want his brother to think he was ungrateful. He'd actually slept better than expected in the unfamiliar bed, no doubt in part due to the soft luxury of the mattress and being able to stay warm for a change with enough layers of blankets. Knowing Papyrus, he'd want to get as early a start as possible, and Sans had gotten used to early awakenings since his commute to work was exceptionally convoluted.

Papyrus frowned. “Breakfast first! Honestly, Sans...”

He practically shooed Sans out of the room, grumbling lowly about Sans's irresponsible morning habits and the parameters of good hosting and of course he wasn't going to let Sans go hungry, what kind of heathen did he take Papyrus for? The familiar griping (fussing, really, if Sans was being honest) was very nostalgic. It would be all too easy to get used to it all over again and fall into the comfortable routine of living under his brother's thumb.

He made a mental note to start looking for new accommodations as quickly as possible.

* * *

Walking out of the Elevator and onto the CEO's floor, Sans was immediately assaulted by Undyne's fist in his face. Thankfully she wasn't actually trying to hit him, since even her casual enthusiasm could easily dust him, but he barely stopped short of gaining an ugly bruise as she insistently shoved something under his nose.

“What the hell is this?” he asked, taking a half-step backwards onto to run right into Papyrus. He flailed slightly, ignoring the bony hand on his shoulder that reflexivity steadied him.

“Your new keycard,” she huffed as if annoyed at his ingratitude. “Top level access with all the trimmings. You're welcome.”

He opened his mouth, but no snappy reply was forthcoming. Nor was a 'thank-you', because this was Undyne and that would just be absurd, but...he hadn't had access to anything but the lower labs and the public floors for months now, and considering how much of his time was spent in this building he'd been feeling increasingly claustrophobic about it. Now he could go anywhere...shit, he could get back into his favourite napping spot down near the server rooms. He could go visit Tori again. He hoped she wasn't pissed at him. It had been a while...he'd never even told here where he'd been reassigned, although she could have found out if she'd really wanted, he supposed. He wasn't sure if he was glad she'd respected his privacy or disappointed she hadn't come looking.

Distracted, he almost missed the brief discourse between Papyrus and Undyne. Her expression was set in the stiff neutrality of someone who knew they didn't have a particularly good poker face but was trying their best. “I have news.”

“Yes?” Papyrus asked, but Undyne flicked her single-eyed gaze down to Sans, managing to say a hell of a lot with that one, dismissive gesture. Papyrus grunted, displeased. “In my office, then.”

Sans was left to watch them go, trying to convince himself there was no reason to feel betrayed. He wasn't the CEO, after all, and he didn't even want to be. There was no reason for him to know everything Papyrus did aside from rampant curiosity and...well, and a desire to know exactly what his brother was dealing with, if only to support him better.

That was a naive thought, though. Papyrus wasn't the kind of person who needed support, and especially not from someone like him. What he needed was for Sans to get his job done, so with a resigned sigh Sans took his place behind the desk and tried to sort through the mess enough to find a place to start.

There were a couple of new files that must have been delivered early in the morning from requests he'd sent out the day before. A dozen emails, including a few brave souls trying to tactfully congratulate him on his promotion, probably hoping for a leg-up themselves. He ignored them, deftly printing out all the useful information he'd need and making a start on the dreaded stacks.

If he was going to do a thorough report for his brother, he'd have to start right from the conception of the projects, which meant tracking down the team members and asking them about it. He sighed. It was going to be an awful lot of running around and busywork, but then again, he'd learned that no chore was too small or tedious that the CEO couldn't assigning it to someone who didn't deserve it. He tried to reassure himself that he was doing this because Papyrus couldn't trust anyone else with it, but the affirmation still rang a little hollow.

Then again, with his shiny new keycard, there was a certain appeal in reacquainting himself with the parts of the building that had been previously off-limits. Maybe not the server room – not until Papyrus was a little more established and this current mess was dealt with, and he could figure out whether it was safe to start pushing his brother's limits – but he really did need some assistance and a certain visit was definitely overdue.

Casting a wary glance at Papyrus's office, Sans began hastily assembling a smaller subset of files and several lists of names he'd have to investigate. He imagined security was still under orders not to let him leave the building, but knowing his brother's sometimes irrational thoroughness and Undyne's professionalism, he didn't want to risk the possibility of being forced under escort everywhere he went. The sudden meeting between the two might be something of a blessing. Sans could sneak out before they were finished and not risk being put under guard.

Feeling almost giddy, he gathered up everything he needed and crept over to the elevator. Once inside, he tentatively tried his keycard on the access panel, and grinned delightedly when all the floors lit up as available options to visit. Casting one last, victorious smirk at Papyrus's closed door, Sans tapped the button for Human/Monster Resources and let the doors close with an air of finality.

* * *

Sans had always liked the HMR Floor. There was a definite aesthetic of welcoming warmth, and the break room was always stocked with goods from the local spider bakery. He dropped by specifically to sample one of the donuts, ignoring the odd looks people gave him. Word had obviously gotten around, and since as far as he knew he and his brother were the only skeleton monsters in the building, it must have been easy to identify him. He did his best to pretend it didn't bother him, keeping his expression purposefully unapproachable as he made his way down the corridor, absently brushing powdered sugar from his chin.

The door to the HMR Manager's office was open, but Sans paused out of sight behind the frame and rapped on it pointedly with his knuckles.

“Knock knock.”

He heard a shift from beyond the doorway, followed by a small huff of amusement. “Who's there?”

“Cows go.”

“Cows go who?”

“No, you idiot, cows go _moo_.” He peeked around the doorway just in time to watch Toriel lose herself in braying laughter. He grinned at her, and she wordlessly gestured for him to come in.

Once she collected herself she pinned him with a fierce, delighted look and pointedly tapped her fist against the wood of her desk. “Knock knock.”

He swayed back on his heels, ready. “Who's there?”

“The interrupting doctor.”

He arched a brow. She must have found some new material. He hadn't heard this one before. “The interrupting-”

“You've got cancer,” she blurted over him, barely restraining herself.

He blinked, got it, and burst out into a laugh that she shared with him heartily. Someone walking past the office gave them an odd look. Once they were out of sight, Sans gave their after-image the finger which made Toriel snort some more before the valiantly collected herself.

“Ah, Sans. I'm so glad you're back with us,” she purred at him, eyeing him over with her heavy-lidded but surprisingly sharp gaze. She couldn't have been that mad with him after all, for which Sans was infinitely grateful. “Is this a social visit?”

“I wish,” he groaned theatrically, hauling his stack of files over to her desk. He'd have to remember to come back another time. Maybe they could lunch together the way they used to. “I need to look into some of the personnel records. Boss wants me to match them up against these projects to make sure everything's clean.”

“Hmm?” She flipped open the first file, scanning the list of names. “What for?”

Sans hesitated, then shrugged. She wasn't a gossip. Chances were she knew more than he did. “Tryin'ta find out what happened up on Level 66.”

“Ah,” she said, her voice soft and reserved. He watched her expression carefully but she didn't give anything away, least of all her thoughts on the matter.

He decided to go for broke and ask directly. “What did they tell you about it?”

“Only the bare minimum,” she said, thumbing through the sheets and jotting down some notes. “The death certificates were lodged this morning. Muffet is handling the insurance side of things, of course.”

“No word on this mysterious contaminant?” he tried. Even after yesterday, he wasn't sure he trusted Papyrus to tell him everything.

“No,” she said, giving him a swift, measured look. “And there's nothing out of the ordinary on the roster. Nothing but the usual hangovers and human food poisonings. Why they insist on using their own rotting produce is beyond me.”

She rolled her eyes, and Sans privately agreed. Monster food was safe, wholesome and delicious, but a lot of humans still shunned it for whatever reason. Crazy. Speaking of which...

“Hey, Tori, what's pink and red and sits in the corner getting smaller and smaller?”

She beamed at him. “What?”

“A human baby with a potato peeler.”

He always loved making her laugh in that way that practically rattled the walls. “Oh goodness. Don't let any of the humans hear you say that. You'll cause another incident.”

“Yeah, I'd hate to have to sit through another of those cultural sensitivity seminars,” he replied drolly, leaning on her desk. “Anyway, think you can help me out with this?”

“Actually...” She looked down at the file, tapping one of the names, and without a word rose from her chair to approach her tall row of filing cabinets. Sans watched as she dug found the corresponding alphabetised drawer and dug around for a minute, her fluffy tail swishing thoughtfully back and forth. After a quiet minute of search she came back with nothing. “I thought so.”

He stared blankly at her. “What?”

“This person here...Georgia Corbel? There's no employee file which means that no one by this name has ever worked for us.”

He thought about that for a moment and wanted to smack a hand to his face. That wasn't even a particularly clever pseudonym. “Oh geeze...no chance there's a typo there, or...?”

Toriel daintily set a small pair of spectacles on the end of her long nose and turned to her computer, swiftly tabbing through her database. “Hmm, there is an electronic entry for that name, but without the corresponding paperwork I'm inclined to think it must be fake. An attempt to create the existence of an employee where there is none. How troubling.”

“No kidding,” Sans crossed his arms, looking down at the stack of files in distaste. At least with a name like that he didn't have to wonder who had put it there. So much for Gaster's notorious genius.

Toriel looked up at him. “Do you believe there will be more?”

“Dunno. Maybe.” It would help if he knew what Gaster needed to make fake employees for in the first place, but...one step at a time. “Can you check them all?”

“It will take some time,” Toriel demurred, looking at the pile with a resignation Sans was quite familiar with.

“That's fine. Just get it done ASAP, yeah? Boss wants this dealt with.”

“Very well,” she said, giving him a look that shifted fluidly from professional reassurance to that acute, motherly stare he had become too familiar with. That was part of the reason he'd been avoiding her all this time. She could always find his weak-point. “And how are things with your brother?”

“F-fine,” he said, practically stumbling over the word. Damnit, he wasn't going to act like a flustered idiot just because Papyrus had been halfway decent to him.

“The day he arrived, he asked me to give him every detail of your employee history,” she told him, feigning mildness. “He wanted to know everything about what you've been doing since he's been gone.”

Sans shrugged half-heartedly, unwilling to over-think it. “He's just like that. Pedantic. Besides, he needed to know I wasn't gonna fight him for the top floor...not that I would have.”

“He also asked me about you personally,” she went on blithely. “I was surprised that he remembered we were acquainted.”

So was Sans. He didn't think he'd ever actually told Papyrus about Toriel by name...only about the hilarious co-worker who'd owned the office next to his back when they were both in the project management division. He hadn't even met her face to face for the first six months. He'd just knocked on the wall behind his own every other day, trading horrible puns and some extremely perverse black humour.

“What did you tell him?” he asked tightly.

She gave him a disapproving frown. “Nothing you need be concerned about. Only the truth...that I hadn't seen you ever since your demotion.”

Sans deflated. “Yeah. Uh. Sorry about that, Tori. You know what the labs are like...”

“I do indeed,” she said, warming slightly. Apparently she was willing to overlook his complete flaking on their friendship. No wonder he liked her. “Nevertheless, now that you are back...It would be pleasant to see you more often.”

He grinned at her. “Only if you're bringing your pie for lunch. Gotta make it worth my while.”

Toriel laughed pleasantly. “Very well, though I believe you will be the one owing me dessert after I finish this.”

She patted the top of the stack of papers with one large paw.

“I owe you. Got it,” he agreed easily. “Though I guess I'd better get back upstairs before someone comes looking for me. I'm up on the top floor now. You have the extension number?”

“I will contact you when I'm finished,” she assured him.

“Thank-!” His phone buzzed rudely in interruption. He frowned, checking it quickly. He had a new message: a very pointed text from Undyne.

_WHERE ARE YOU?_

“Oops,” he muttered, but couldn't resist feeling a little gratified by her obvious frustration. “Someone's missing me. I better go.”

“Don't be a stranger, Sans,” Toriel told him, smiling.

“Right. Hey, if Undyne turns up, tell her I went down to the cafeteria, okay?”

Toriel hummed her agreement, already turning her attention to his files which was a good thing since she was usually pretty good at catching on when he was about to make someone's life difficult. Must be those motherly instincts. Sans had no intention of letting Undyne find him just yet. He had places to be and work to do...and it would be fun to see how long it might take her to catch up.

With a vicious grin, he set off for the elevator, considering his options. The lab had some of the files he needed. Maybe he'd go there first.


	7. Chapter 7

Sans arrived back at his station, skilfully juggling a packet of chisps atop a precarious stack of folders. By now Undyne would probably have found the memo he'd left taped to the vending machine down by the service department, and he imagined he could hear her screech of rage even from the top floor.   
  
The note cheerfully offered his very insincere condolences and encouraged her to try again next time. Also it recommended she try the mustard flavoured chisps in said vending machine because they were indisputably the best and he had no idea why that was the only machine in the whole building with that specific flavour. The service department must have some special deal going on with the distributor. He would have been more annoyed except that it had given him a perfectly valid reason to waste an extra half an hour on that floor between gathering up experiment logs and collecting notes from technicians.  
  
Undyne had even called in backup to try and corner him. Sans smirked to himself, crunching victoriously on another chisp. He'd bet she was fuming, trying to figure out how he could possibly have evaded her when every elevator had been under guard. Well, she was the security expert. She really shouldn't have been focused on keeping one rogue skeleton from wandering away from his desk in the first place.  
  
His quiet laughter at her expense was abruptly cut off as the door to his brother's office slammed open, revealing a surprisingly harried looking Papyrus. His foul mood poured from him in waves, making Sans wish he could dive for cover under his desk. “Where the hell have you been!?”  
  
“Uh. Working?” Sans offered, lifting his files as a shield against his brother's wrath and trying to discreetly brush the chisp crumbs from his chin. He refused to let the brief stab of guilt affect him. He _had_ been working...in between enjoying some of his previously lost perks (the spider doughnuts that were always available in the accounting department's break-room, the mustard chisps from the service department) and leading Undyne on an elaborate chase through the building. He supposed he was only proving Gaster right in showing that the moment he had any measure of freedom back he immediately set about being irresponsible with it, but fuck'it, it'd been a pretty shitty week all things considered. He was just venting some of his stress by giving it to Undyne instead. That was how it worked, right?  
  
Papyrus sighed emphatically and made a sharp, summoning gesture. “Get in here,”   
  
Sans cringed, expecting a further chastening for his spontaneous excursion to the lower floors, or perhaps a brutal accusation about the validity of his work ethic, but Papyrus wasn't alone in his office. Alphys peered at him from one of the plush chairs in front of the grand desk, her face twitching with nerves, but that was pretty usual for her. He gave her a sharp, questioning look but she turned away before he could try and decipher anything from her expression.  
  
“Sit,” Papyrus commanded Sans, indicating the chair beside Alphys, and returning to his own imposing seat. Sans sat uneasily, starting to suspect this unexpected meeting wasn't actually about his illicit wanderings through the other floors. Something heavier must have been weighing on his brother's mind; something important enough to call Alphys to a meeting in person. Usually she hated leaving the labs, requesting that any directives be transmitted to her through text or email since she didn't enjoy face to face confrontations. It was an eccentric request, but usually honoured because she was much more efficient that way. Having her lose half a day to stress and anxiety helped no one.   
  
Papyrus took a deep breath, composing himself. There was a sheaf of papers in font of him that Sans couldn't quite read, but the emblems looked pretty official.  
  
“The local authorities have finished their investigation into the Level 66 incident,” Papyrus began, and both Sans and Alphys flinched, although the latter less so. She must have had some idea what they were here for. “They have declared it an unfortunate industrial accident, and have released the space for our own internal examination so long as we take the utmost caution with any further activities and provide a complete site review regarding improved operational standards.”  
  
“A-are you sure it's safe in there?” Alphys asked, wringing her clawed hands. Her tail lashed uneasily against the leg of the chair. “We still don't know what caused the accident.”  
  
“That is part of what we will be trying to discover,” Papyrus said, his expression hard. “We have already conducted a  full safety sweep for any possible contaminants. Nothing has been found. For this inspection, Undyne and her team will be providing physical security and assistance where required, but I don't want to send any low-level personnel in there until we've positively identified all the equipment and the potential risks they pose. Hopefully in doing so we'll uncover the source of the accident, so the three of us will-”  
  
“Wait!” Sans interrupted, blanching. “The three of us...you want me there?”  
  
Papyrus exasperatedly rolled his eyelights at his brother. “Yes, Sans. That is why you are here.”  
  
“It's just...shouldn't you be getting some of the high level lab techs in there? I'm just-” A low level researcher with inadequate qualifications. Sure, he'd done more than his fair share of practical work, but not a lot of it was recognised outside of the business. Gaster had kept most of Sans's accomplishments under wraps because technically speaking Sans shouldn't have been allowed to do half the things he'd gotten away with.   
  
As he floundered, Papyrus pressed him, “Can you name anyone else on the premiss who would have had access to our Father's private laboratory within the last twelve months?”  
  
Sans opened his mouth to reply but found himself unexpectedly without an answer. Gaster was incredibly secretive with his private projects. Hell, he'd been surprised to hear Gaster had been working with a whole team in there. Previously it had been only Gaster and Sans himself, when the latter had still had some small measure of his father's good graces.   
  
He looked askance at Alphys. “Uh...Alph?”  
  
The lizard monster shook her head. “I haven't e-ever actually been in the CEO's p-private work area. This w-will be my first time.”  
  
“Most of the laboratory contains custom-made equipment that we have not been able to identify,” Papyrus said, sounding aggravated. “And naturally most of the records have been removed or misplaced, and even the few that do exist only summarise the raw materials, not whatever he was doing with them. With your previous involvement, you may be the only one capable of fully cataloguing everything he has in there.”  
  
Sans sank further into his seat, folding in on himself. “Fine. I guess.”  
  
Papyrus gave him a searching look that Sans studiously avoided. It wasn't that he objected to the work, but he didn't relish the idea of returning to his father's laboratories. They were the source of far too many unpleasant memories.   
  
Papyrus stood up. “Then if you would both follow me...”  
  
Sans hastily complied, thinking quickly over the logistics. “Hang on, so it makes sense why you want Alph and I in there...but why are _you_ coming?”  
  
“The laboratories are under lockdown, restricted to CEO access only,” Papyrus informed him primly.  
  
“So let us take your keycard and we'll take care of it,” Sans said, trying to keep the edge of unease out of his voice. He wasn't looking forward to revisiting Level 66, but neither did he want Papyrus going down there. There were too many unknown risks, not to mention how many people had _died_. He didn't want his little brother exposed to that.  “You're the CEO now, you shouldn't be-”  
  
“I intend to oversee this operation personally. This is not up for discussion,” Papyrus growled, and Sans cut off any further protests. Papyrus's glare was withering, and Sans had the feeling he'd overstepped.  
  
He ducked his head. “Yes sir.”  
  
He and Alphys were forced to follow along in his brother's wake, both of them struggling to keep up with his long, purposeful strides. In the elevator, Sans took a moment to scrutinise his former supervisor, though she kept her head down and her terse expression focused resolutely on the floor.   
  
Papyrus seemed to intimidate her, and he supposed he couldn't hold it against her. For all his faults, Gaster had at least possessed a veneer of calm about him that had served to put Alphys's anxious nature at ease. He'd managed to bring out the best in her, even if that had required him to essentially manipulate her faults to craft an atmosphere of guilt and expectation that seemed to keep her motivated.   
  
Sans had worked closely with her, back when she'd first started at the company, and they might have even been approaching a tenuous friendship because Gaster had forcibly separated them. Sans had been restricted to working strictly under his father's direction, whilst Alphys had been promoted to oversee the lower levels. Actual people management didn't suit her well, to the point where he was pretty sure she'd crafted and AI to manage the schedules, handle emails and deal with the day to day problems. He supposed he could admire her ingenuity, but he'd dealt with her 'assistant' often enough to find it a frustrating barrier to actually speaking to Alphys herself. This MTT auto-responder of hers was pretty over the top, and strangely protective.  
  
When Sans had been reassigned to the lowest tier of the labs, he'd barely seen her at all except at the monthly meetings they were all forced to attend. She seemed to make a point of ignoring him, and he might have been offended except that it made things much less awkward. Besides, he was hardly the only one she avoided. She barely dealt with anyone else in the labs personally, and her reclusive nature had fostered a very secretive, uncommunicative ambience. Most of the lab technicians kept to themselves. No one talked about their projects. Information was hoarded and treated as sacred, and as such there was a low level of competitive conflict and rampant sabotage as they all vied for attention, promotion and recognition.   
  
Thankfully Sans had avoided that, largely because he'd had no hope for advancement, and no one had been willing to involve the CEO's son just in case Gaster himself took interest in their private warfare. Sans figured none of them had figured out Gaster had probably encouraged the whole thing to make his workers as productive and yet isolated as possible. That seemed to be the attitude he preferred to cultivate among his subordinates, through extensively tested methods perfected over time through use over Sans himself.  
  
They stepped out of the elevator and into the surprisingly mundane reception area. The labs were locked behind an imposing set of sealed doors that included a decontamination chamber, but masking that was a perfectly ordinary lounge that included a few uncomfortable looking chairs and a water cooler. Sans had always found this part unsettling; the pretence of normality and geniality hiding the convoluted, intimidating interior. It reminded him of their father in ways he'd rather not think too deeply about.  
  
As they crossed the lounge, Sans nearly stumbled, gripping the side of his skull. There was a discomforting buzz against his senses, like the hum of a noise just outside his hearing range.   
  
Alphys noticed his fumbling. “W-what's wrong?”  
  
“Can't you feel that?” Sans asked, shaking his head in an attempt to dislodge the feeling. “The magical dampeners must be damaged.”  
  
The feeling of stepping into a distorted magic field would have been hair-raising if he'd had any. Without that particular attribute, Sans just felt the uncomfortable resonance down in his bones.  
  
“Make a note of it. We'll be sending an advisory to maintenance once the investigation is complete,” Papyrus commanded, striding forward to meet the security detail in front of the main security gate.  
  
Undyne was at the forefront, of course, her face professionally impassive, although Sans was pretty sure if she could she'd be giving him the stink-eye. He smirked at her from safely behind his brother's back. Her jaw clenched, saw-like teeth grinding together before she snapped to attention in front of Papyrus. “Sir. The team is ready.”  
  
“Excellent,” he said, handing her off his keycard. She took it and whisked it through the scanner, the mechanism whirring ponderously through its authorisation process before finally unlocking the door with an audible hiss.   
  
“Isn't there usually a biometrics scan and a magic scan?” Sans asked Alphys in a low voice, looking warily at the door. Gaster hadn't been slack with his security measures. Last time he'd worked here regularly, Sans practically had to give a marrow sample every time he wanted to get through the door.  
  
“We had to override the usual p-protocols to allow law enforcement access to the scene,” Alphys murmured. She still seemed agitated, but Sans noticed her demeanour was slightly steadier when Undyne was around. “I had to remotely log in to the control system and bypass the lock-down procedure.”  
  
“You hacked the CEO's system?” Sans asked, impressed. “Nice.”  
  
“O-only under authorisation, of course,” Alphys hurriedly qualified, glancing abashedly at Undyne. “S-security oversaw the procedure since we needed to get in, uh. A-after the accident.”  
  
Sans expression flipped from admiration to dismay. “Oh geeze. How long did it take you?”  
  
“A-about four hours,” Alphys said, wringing her hands again. “In that time, it seems like most of the server data was designed to self-erase, including all the camera footage and records form the internal sensors. T-that's why there's so little information about what happened.”  
  
Four hours. Gaster's team could have been dead for all that time, or perhaps only minutes before Alphys had managed to force access. Monster dust didn't have a decomposition rate the way human bodies did. It was a lot more difficult to discern the time or means of death.   
  
“Hey, nerds, hurry up!”  
  
The two smaller monsters started, Alphys squeaking in dismay as she hurried into the adjoining decontamination room where the security team and Papyrus were already waiting. Sans followed more slowly, trying to keep the dread off his expression. He'd never thought to consider what might happen in Gaster's labs if things had gone appallingly wrong. He hadn't even considered it. Gaster was awful, but he was also brilliant and careful. The worst that had ever happened was a few unfortunate chemical spills and a couple of hardware issues that had resulted in loss of data. Nothing dangerous, even for someone with Sans's poor health.   
  
The decontamination chamber was a serious security measure to prevent anything, magical, chemical or radioactive, from passing back into the building. It was rather cramped inside with so many people. Sans backed up against the wall, fighting for breathing room between papyrus's bony hip and the broad shoulders of one of Undyne's lackeys as the door sealed heavily behind them. A fine mist sprayed from the ceiling, raining down a purifying solution Gaster had come up with himself, and he knew that behind the walls they were all being thoroughly scanned for anything outside the expected parameters.  
  
Sans always swore he could feel that invasive scan like a physical pressure on his bones. He shifted uncomfortably, rubbing briefly at his temple. The buzzing of the faulty dampeners seemed to be giving him a headache.  
  
Finally the inner door opened, and the security team poured into the main laboratory corridor, moving in a tight formation as they spread out down the hallway. Only Undyne stayed behind, watching their movements with an air of pride.  
  
“They look like they're about to infiltrate a bank vault,” Sans remarked to her, refusing to be impressed. “There isn't actually anyone else in here, right?”  
  
“No,” Undyne conceded. “But it's good training. Besides, it doesn't hurt to be careful...especially when I have to keep my eyes open for anyone who might think of wandering off.”  
  
She gave him a sour glare, to which he returned a sweet, toothy smile. At least sniping at her helped distract him from the anxious sweat working its way down his spine. He turned to Papyrus. “Okay, Boss, where do you want us to start?”  
  
“Anywhere is fine.” Papyrus was looking around, his posture alert and tense, and Sans realised that maybe Papyrus hadn't actually been on this level before either. He was sure he'd met his brother a time or two out in the reception area, but from what he'd pieced together Papyrus hadn't actually arrived until after the accident had occurred, and would have had no reason to have access to their father's sanctum beforehand.  
  
He might actually be the only one who knew what to look for, and the idea of directing the investigation made him distinctly uncomfortable.   
  
“Okay, uh...how about we start in Analysis? Usually that's where the Doc would have kept anything he was actively working on.”  
  
Papyrus nodded, gesturing for Sans to lead the way, which he did so with some trepidation. Thankfully nothing had really changed since the last time Sans had been here. There was no evidence of anything untoward, no signs of a mess or struggle or, thankfully, traces of dust piles as he led them to Gaster's Analysis Room.  
  
He'd personally dubbed it Gaster's 'Thinking Room'. It was where his father had set out all his research, references and experimental results in one great, chaotic pattern that only made sense to himself, and sometimes to Sans. The room was plastered with clean walls that could be safely scrawled on with markers as Gaster jotted down ideas or conclusions about his work. If there were any answers to be found, surely it would be there.  
  
Except that once he entered the room, Sans could immediately tell someone had beaten them to the punch. All the walls were eerily clean. There was an overflowing trash can full of shredded strings of paper. There were no files or books in sight, where usually they would have been spread over every flat surface, including the floor.  
  
He let out a low whistle through his teeth. “Uh. You didn't send anyone to clean up in here, right?”  
  
“Of course not,” Papyrus said stiffly. “It was the site of an ongoing investigation.”  
  
“Then someone's definitely been here trying to hide stuff,” Sans said, walking up to the nearest wall and squinting against the reflection of the overhead light. Sometimes the markers left traces behind, imprints of ghostly letters that could still be read, but even those faint impressions had been thoroughly cleaned off. “Yeah. Unless the Doc knew something was gonna happen, looks like someone else has already done a cover up and gotten rid of anything recent...I've never seen this place look so spotless. Hey, Alph, if you can get those computers running, there might be something left about his latest simulations.”  
  
“Damn,” Undyne swore softly, moving closer to Papyrus, keeping her voice low as Alphys moved to turn on the computers. “We never found any sign of intrusion or tampering from the outside. The floor was locked down until Alphys hacked the door.”  
  
“No chance they slipped out when you were searching for survivors?” Papyrus asked, his voice equally muted.  
  
“The elevator was guarded...and no one would have been able to get through decontamination unnoticed. That thing is pretty noisy.”  
  
“There's no other way off this floor?” Sans asked, deciding to forego the pretence that he couldn't overhear them.   
  
Undyne shook her head. “None of the windows open, and all of them are sealed with two inches of bulletproof glass. There's no stairwells or elevators, no access hatches or ducts...even the ventilation is on a separate system.”  
  
“M-maybe they haven't left yet,” Alphys offered distractedly, experimentally keying in her access code into the security firewall. The computer rejected her authorisation. “Maybe they're still here, waiting for a better opportunity to leave.”  
  
The possibility hung unnervingly in the air. Alphys turned around, seemed surprised that her suggestion had not only been heard, but taken seriously. “Uh! I mean. That's only if the cover up was done by an outsider. It seems more feasible that someone from the team itself would have been responsible.”  
  
“Why though?” Undyne frowned. “Why make it harder to figure out what killed them?”  
  
“M-maybe someone deliberately sabotaged the experiment?” Sans offered. “And got rid of all the research to cover it up?”  
  
“And then went and killed themselves?” Undyne asked incredulously.   
  
Sans shrugged expansively. “You'd have to be pretty crazy to try and screw Gaster over.”  
  
“As entertaining as this speculation is, perhaps we should concentrate on finding concrete evidence?” Papyrus suggested, faintly exasperated.   
  
“Right. Alph, you check these computers. Boss, you should stay with her just in case, yeah? I'll get Undyne to escort me over to the processing room to check out whether there's any blueprints left behind since it, uh, looks like this room's already been cleaned out.”  
  
“Fine,” Papyrus agreed more easily than Sans hoped. In fact, it looked like Undyne wanted to be the one to make an objection, so Sans was forced to shove her out of the room behind his brother's back, glaring at her warningly to keep her mouth shut until the door closed behind them.  
  
Of course, he really wouldn't have had any success moving the muscular fish-monster who was practically twice his height anywhere she didn't let him. She turned on him, looking outraged, but was sensible enough to keep her voice to a low hiss. “What!?”  
  
“Show me where the accident happened,” he said lowly. “If there's anything worth finding, it'll be there.”  
  
He was going to spare Papyrus from having to see that part of the labs if at all possible. Hopefully he could find something useful enough to appease his brother's desire to take part in the investigation first hand.   
  
Undyne gave him a flat stare. “He doesn't need you to coddle him, you know.”  
  
“Shut up,” he snapped, annoyed that she would call him out on his real motivations. He preferred to think he wasn't so transparent, but at least when it came to Papyrus he was probably too obvious. “Until you convince me this place is completely safe, let's try not to lose another CEO, all right?”  
  
She flared at the implication her security was somehow inadequate, but maybe Alphys's unerring prediction made her feel uneasy because after a minute of quiet internal conflict she gave him a short, grudging nod. “Fine. It took place in the Experiment Room 3. Do you know where that is?”  
  
Sans let out a deep breath. He was pretty sure he'd known all along that's where it would have been. The last place he'd held an actual conversation with his father, though it had degenerated swiftly into a very one-sided rebuke that had escalated into Sans's demotion and banishment from his father's Labs. “Yeah. Let's go.”


	8. Chapter 8

As much as he hated to admit it, Sans found himself grateful for Undyne’s formidable presence at his side. The corridors that had once been so familiar to him seemed so much more eerie now, especially when they reached the junction before Experiment Room 3 and everything beyond was shrouded in darkness.

“They’re keeping the whole area shut down just in case,” Undyne told him, pulling out a sturdy looking torch and lighting up the floor in front of them. “Alphys said the power systems are, uh...integrated? So it’s either all on or all off, and until we know what caused the accident we’re keeping it off.”

Sans snorted softly, because that sounded exactly like the kind of ridiculous system Gaster would implement. Sure, it was probably more efficient, but was it more practical? Hell no. He pulled out his phone, turning on its own small light just so he wouldn’t be left completely blind as Undyne strode on ahead. There was a predatory grace in her movements that actually made him feel pretty safe. He was pretty sure she was the deadliest thing in this building, hands down, which made the unknown dark a lot less unsettling.

“Keep up!” she snapped at him when her longer strides inevitably put some distance between them. He cursed at her, needing to maintain a light trot just to keep up. 

“Holy fuck, slow down,” he complained, already struggling even with the light physical effort. Ugh. Unlike his brother, he’d never seen the point of training up his physical stamina. With one HP, his potential would have been capped at a pretty pathetic level anyway. “Whatever’s in there isn’t going anywhere.”

“I just wanna get this done,” she said grimly, and the unexpected vehemence in her tone made him wonder if this was personal for her. He could have smacked himself because of course it was. People had died on her watch, and even if the threat wasn’t one she could have comprehended let alone stopped, she probably hated the mark that left on her otherwise perfect record. 

Besides, her haste worked in his favour since the quicker they finished, the sooner he could convince Papyrus to leave. While he wasn’t superstitious (no more so than any other monster for whom the realist of ghosts and werewolves was a given) he didn’t think it would a good idea to let Papyrus anywhere near where Gaster had met his fate. 

They made it to the entrance of Experiment Room 3 without incident before Sans realised there was going to be a problem. The control panel that operated the door was dark and unresponsive. All the doors in the lab were controlled electronically so they could be sealed for safety reasons. Undyne scowled, palming around where the two halves of the door joined each other, but there wasn’t enough of a seam for her to work her fingers into so she could attempt to pry it open by sheer force.

“Damn,” she muttered, hands on hips. “Fucking waste of time. We’ll need Alphys to open the door.”

Sans gave her back an arch look that thankfully went unobserved. What, didn’t she think Sans could rewire a simple power circuit to get things running again? He could, but that was admittedly more effort than he cared to expend, and he rather liked that she kept her expectations of him nice and low. 

But if they got Alphys involved, Papyrus would want to come too, and that was an outcome Sans was hoping to avoid. It would also take him some time to get the power fixed, especially since he didn’t know exactly how it had been disabled in the first place. 

He pressed against the wall to the lab, feeling the buzzing in his skull amplifying. The damage to the magical dampeners was much worse here, at the source of whatever had happened. Experimentally he conjured a small bone in his palm, and though it flickered unwillingly at first, it did grudgingly solidify after a few moments. That meant the field was weak enough here that he could use magic, which meant…

Undyne was stabbing frustratedly at her phone. “Ugh. There’s no signal here either. I can’t reach her.”

“‘Course not,” Sans scoffed. He’d known that would be the case already. All electronic signals in and out of the lab could only be passed through specific terminals for security reasons. The message that had summoned Gaster down to the labs during the crisis would have been sent through the internal intercom stations, which were also inoperable with the power down in this area. 

But he didn’t need Alphys when he had a shortcut.

“I got an idea,” he said, inching back towards the corner that marked the adjoining corridor. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, you can send a search party or whatever.”

“What?!” she exclaimed, turning sharply, but he’d already put enough distance between them that she wouldn’t make it in time to see him stepping around the wall, out of her sight, and disappearing into nothingness. The small fold in spacetime felt unnaturally restrictive, and it took far more effort than it usually did for him to squeeze out the passage at the other end that spat him back out inside the room of the lab.

Immediately the static in his skull amplified from a mildly distracting hiss to a screaming cacophony of pain. He clutched the sides of his head, reeling from the backlash of teleporting through the dampening field. “Ow! Fuck!”

Holy shit, that actually kind of hurt. His legs felt unsteady and his eyelights sparked out, leaving him blind for a few disorienting moments before he could focus enough to re-ignite them again. Doing so made his sockets burn unpleasantly, though, and he had to exert a lot more effort than usual just to be able to see.

Through the nearby door, he could hear a brief shout of utter outrage and disbelief as Undyne inevitably found the corridor outside empty of any skeletons. That briefly gave him a reason to smirk as he tried to shake off the lingering ache. Hopefully she’d take what he said into account instead of immediately storming off to form a search party, but even if she did, he’d have a little while to look around before she came back with reinforcements. Bracing himself, he lifted his head and finally lifted his phone to shine light on the inside of Experiment Room 3.

The room had changed drastically since the last time he’d been in here. Before, this space had been mostly dedicated to experiments involving long range magic. It was the largest of the experiment rooms, though most of that space had been empty to offer a small training field to simulate battles and give enhancements like the Gaster Blasters room to move. Sans couldn’t repress a small shudder, the tethers that had been hooked into his soul feeling slightly heavier than normal.

Now, though, a great deal of the space had been taken up with other machines and consoles. He recognised the advanced scanning array that used to belong in Experiment Room 2, as well as one of the larger generators from storage. There was also a few others that he didn’t recognised at all, particularly the large one in the centre of the room that seemed to be the focal point of the whole strange arrangement. It housed a large, glass capsule that was cracked down one side, but otherwise appeared to be empty. The sight of it was slightly harrowing. Gaster tended to use the finest force-resisting materials in his work. Something incredibly violent must have happened to cause that kind of damage.

A closer inspection of the rest of the room revealed further evidence of damage, mostly in charred conduits and some shattered screens on the consoles. He looked them over, wondering if any of that electrical feedback had been enough to dust the research team. Maybe only if they’d had exceptionally low health, like he did? He was pretty sure one of the monsters on Gaster’s list had been a scientist with a strong electrical affinity due to his species type. That might have spared him from becoming a victim, but maybe it also made him a possible suspect? Surely Papyrus or the outside investigation team had considered that angle. They wouldn’t have declared it an ‘industrial accident’ if there was any sign of foul play. 

The lights suddenly flickered on, startling a yelp out of him even though they were only in their dim, low-power state. Undyne must not have waited after all, and he silently cursed her impatience. At least he could see better with the lights turned on, which would make his work faster. His eyes had been straining to focus in the tiny light of his phone’s illumination.

Seeing the room in its entirety made the scorch marks of damage must easier to trace. The generator must have overloaded at some point, setting off a chain reaction through the rest of the system, but if that was all it was, the results shouldn’t have been so drastic. Gaster always had safety measures installed, particularly when working with high voltages. There were plenty of grounding connections through the floor, so he couldn’t imagine there could have been enough power to kill three monsters and incapacitate a forth. Even if that had been the case, the electric-type monster should have been the survivor, not Gaster. 

He glanced around, trying to envision where the research team might have been standing, and immediately realised he didn’t need to guess. The investigations team had left several bright red circles of tape around the room -- three of them in small circles, and one slightly larger patch which must have represented Gaster’s fallen body. His was right up on the podium, near the glass case, which Sans would have imagined to be the epicenter of the accident. How had he lived when the others had died?

Against his better judgement, Sans approached that larger circle of tape, his mind readily supplying an image of Gaster lying sprawled in that position. Even though he’d felt stung by Papyrus’s cynical assumption that Sans might have rejoiced to see their father brought low, he couldn’t help but feel a faint twinge of satisfaction at his imagination’s conjuring. The mighty Gaster, brought low by his own experiment. Had he finally gotten too greedy and reckless? Had he put his trust in a member of the team who’d failed them all? It seemed unlikely since he’d never even trusted Sans’s work without abrasively double-checking everything, but things might have changed since Sans had been exiled to the labs. For years Sans had been the only technician Gaster had tolerated in his private lab. Maybe the lack of support had actually impacted him enough to get sloppy?

Sans snorted, shaking his head. Yeah right. Wishful thinking. Gaster prided himself on being infallible. It had to be something else.

With a disgruntled sigh he turned away from the tape and almost jumped out of his non-existent skin when he realised someone was standing behind him, bent over and focusing intently on one of the consoles. Fuck, Undyne’s reinforcements must have come already. He’d been too distracted to even notice the door opening. But what did the idiot think he was doing, looking over the panel like that? Even with the power turned off, Sans had been leery of getting too close, just in case.

“Hey,” Sans grunted at the figure, cautiously stepping closer. His head was positively pounding now from the static of the dampening field. It wasn’t actually so surprising he hadn’t been able to notice the new arrival beforehand. He could barely see straight. “You shouldn't get near that. Some of this stuff is still danger...ous...”

He trailed off, feeling a chill run down his spine as he realised belatedly that the monster wasn't a member of the security detail. He'd have remembered someone with such long, angular looking limbs after being stuck in the cramped decontamination chamber together.

Sans took a half-step back. “What the hell are you-?”

The monster turned to look at him, their movements oddly stiff and their face cast in such a heavy shadow Sans couldn't even make out their features – no, a better way to describe it was that their face was made of shadow, something so dense it practically seems to fold back in on itself, devouring the light around it.

There was something very, very wrong with this monster.

“Oh fuck,” Sans breathed, torn between moving closer and the far more tempting impulse to turn on his heel and run like hell. Behind him was nothing but the glass tube and the strange machine though. There was no place to run. The door was beyond the strange monster. Sans would have to get past it if he wanted to get out.

He stared at the monster, frozen in place, silently daring it to make a move and give him a reason to attack.

And then the lights went out again.

“Oh fuck,” he breathed, feeling something like true terror crawling up his spine. He fumbled for his phone again but ended up dropping it from his shaking hands, hearing it clatter on the floor. “Fuck!”

Screw that, he was leaving. He reached for another shortcut, stumbling backwards, hoping to fall into the safety of his magic, but instead of ripping through spacetime it felt like something inside him tore instead. He let out a short shriek, feeling all the magic holding his body together revolt, threatening to shatter his bones to pieces. 

The pain was so bad he lost sense of himself for a minute, and when his senses sharpened again he was sprawled on the floor, completely blind. Was he out of the lab? He couldn’t see anything. Oh, wait, his eyelights were out again. Still panicked, he overestimated how much magic he’d need and felt his left socket flare like a furnace, projecting bright red light. It was enough to illuminate the floor next to him but not much else.

That small sliver of light was enough for him to see the red tape. He was still in the experiment room. He was practically sitting in Gaster’s after-image, breathing hard and feeling something hot and wet gushing from his socket. Spent magic, most likely. Even though his eye was still glowing, the pressure on it felt incredible, like someone was shoving a knife into his skull. He whimpered lowly, even as he clumsily scuttled backwards, trying to press himself into the corner beside the machine.

Where the fuck was Undyne and her fucking security team? Where the hell had the lights gone? Goddamn, he was going to ream Alphys for this, assuming the intruder didn’t kill him. 

Where the hell had he come from? Even if Alphys had been right about someone hiding in the lab, where could they have been that the investigations team had overlooked them? Where they could creep up on Sans unannounced? It crossed his mind that maybe they had shortcuts like he did, but his had been an amplification of his natural abilities forcibly induced by some of Gaster’s earlier experiments, and they’d never been able to replicate the results on anyone else much to Gaster’s perpetual disappointment. Besides, he hadn’t felt any crackling or disturbance in the dampening field like he had when he’d ‘ported into the room. The monster had just...appeared.

Like a ghost, maybe? Some monsters were partially or wholly without a physical form, but part of the dampening field was meant to deter exactly those kinds of intrusions from the lab and, indeed, from the whole building. There’d been a massive protest at one point that had given Tori headaches for months, dealing with complaints of unfair discrimination against the incorporeal, but in the end Gaster’s word had held firm. Ghosts were too much of a security risk for a company that already had far too many enemies. Having employees who could pass through walls and wander into restricted areas was too dangerous.

It suddenly occurred to him that flaring his eye like he was only gave away his position, and he hastily let it gutter out to a more muted glow, but the adjustment had come too late. Something grabbed his ankle and forcibly yanked him out of the small alcove he was hiding in, dragging him across the floor. He yelled, kicking frantically in the direction of his assailant, but nothing seemed to land. He gritted his teeth and forced his magic to shape a flurry of bones that struck out into the darkness, and though he didn’t hear anything connect the hold on his foot suddenly released, setting him free.

He wheezed, feeling the excruciating aftermath of forcing yet more magic through the broken field, but before he could collect himself he was suddenly being crushed under some unseen weight. Something was on top of him, heavy but formless, and pressing its weight down hard enough to make his ribs and spine creak warningly.

“No no no-!” He tried to focus, flailing at the dark but his magic had endured enough abuse and refused to respond and his brittle strength did nothing. He couldn’t even seem to find anything to hit, his arms lashing impotently in the darkness, but there was definitely something there, holding him in place.

He couldn’t touch it. He couldn’t hit it. He couldn’t use magic. His head was swimming and his eye was a spike of agony through his skull that seemed to be getting worse, like some outside pressure was forcing its way in the same way it was holding him down. He gurgled helplessly, barely able to hear himself as his vision blacked out again, his feeble struggles weakening as he suffocated under the weight of the darkness.

But before he passed out he thought he heard something whispering to him

THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT SEEMS

VERY

VERY

INTERESTING...


	9. Chapter 9

Utter panic did strange things to the mind. Fuelled by desperation, Sans pushed past the awful agony in his bones to reach for another shortcut, willing himself to be anywhere but here, and--

\--suddenly he was nowhere.

That couldn’t be right. His brain just must have lost track of things for a few muddled minutes. Some sort of defensive shut-down, because the discomforting sensation of being surrounded by nothing -- the vastness of it, the incomprehensibility of it -- was too disturbing for him to accept. He didn’t want to try and rationalise the existence (or non-existence) of a place (absence) like that.

So surely he was somewhere, but it was a somewhere that didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense, but that was only because he was terrified and his magic was shorting out and his eye really hurt--

\--god, it fucking hurt. It was like someone was probing into it with a massive drill, slowly shaving it open by painful increments with a driving point of unbearable pain that went right to the back of his skull. The pain was almost larger than the nothingness around him, consuming him with its awful intensity. He’d scream, but there was no air to carry the sound, and no one to hear it except--

VERY

INTERESTING

DON’T

YOU

THINK?

\--and then suddenly he was definitely somewhere again, but it was a somewhere that was loud and bright and suffocatingly heavy. He was on his back still, the cold steel of the floors pressing hard against his scapulae, and there were hands holding him down despite his heaving, thrashing panic. With a screech of pain and fury he called for his blasters, Gaster’s rules be damned, he was going to fucking destroy everything, he was going to send it all back to nothingness, he was--!

“Sans.”

Papyrus’s voice somehow cut through the cacophony of horrendous sounds even though his voice was so quiet, or maybe because it was; soft but firm, it pulled Sans up short. The blasters halted with their mouths still full of spitting, unbridled energy. It took several painfully long seconds to gathers his wits enough to focus and figure out just what the hell was going on. He was lying prone on a floor, not in the lab but one of the corridors. Papyrus was kneeling next to him, one hand outstretched but frozen in place. He stayed very still. Behind him, both Alphys, Undyne and a couple of monsters from the security team also stayed very still. It was like the world around him was absurdly paused, and Sans found it momentarily ridiculous until he realised that the reason no one was moving was because there was a pair of enormous, volatile cannons hovering over his head, quivering in place with their barely-restrained power.

“Sans,” Papyrus repeated, his voice sounding oddly strained. “Put the blasters away.”

Sans stared at his brother, still primed with dangerous energy, but there was no sign of his assailant, and in any case, Undyne was here to fight off anyone who needed fighting. Sans reached for the snarled strings of his magic, severing them, and the blasters disintegrated into nothing. The room seemed to release a collective breath, and suddenly instead of being paused everything seemed to move in double-speed. Sans found himself being pushed back to the floor by his brother, and immediately Alphys was hovering over him looking like she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“Stay still,” Papyrus snapped when Sans weakly tried to sit up again. He didn’t really want to. His skull was throbbing, and his left eye felt both strangely wet and excruciatingly tender. He let Papyrus push him back to the floor, blinking bemusedly up at the ceiling as chaos exploded around him. 

“The medical team is coming,” Undyne’s voice rang out over the din of her team bustling around in swift, hive-like activity. “The floor is back on lockdown. Security will be holding down the building until we’re clear.”

Papyrus cursed quietly, his voice pitched low enough that probably only Sans could hear it. “God fucking damnit, Sans, what the hell were you thinking?”

A pang of guilty remorse tugged at his soul, but he had far more important things to worry about. He managed to snag the edge of his brother’s sleeve and tugged on it insistently. “...s’attacked.”

Papyrus jerked, staring at him intently. “What?”

Sans scowled at his own weakness, laboriously forcing the words out. “W’s attacked. Someone s’in th’ lab.”

Papyrus’s eyes widened marginally before his entire expression hardened. “Undyne-”

“I’m going,” she agreed instantly. Sans couldn’t see from his position, but the movement and noise in the room decreased substantially. She must have taken some of her team with her. 

Sans relaxed marginally, tension bleeding from his bones. Undyne would take care of it. Papyrus was safe, and amazingly, Sans wasn’t dead. That was all he could ask for...well, that and something to kill the awful pain in his head. He could feel Papyrus trying to pry away the hand Sans was holding to his eye, but it felt like his grip was the only thing currently holding his fragile skull together. He flinched away. “Don’t. Hurts.”

Papyrus looked like he wanted to argue, but visibly restrained himself, turning his glower on Alphys. “Keep him stable until the medical team gets here.”

Alphys balked, her claws clenching anxiously. “I-I-I’m n-not really a m-medical doc-”

Something in Papyrus’s expression made her choke on her objection, and instead she nodded almost vehemently. “O-okay, okay. Um. I’ll n-need to see-”

Papyrus stood up in one smooth, elegant motion, picked Alphys up and wordlessly deposited her in the space he’d been occupying. She was so stunned and flustered it took a pointed growl from Papyrus to prompt her into motion again. Swiftly she reached towards Sans, her hands moving towards his skull. “S-sans, you’re going t-to be okay! If you c-could let me see your injury…”

He tried to shake his head, but the motion just made him feel sick and dizzy. The pain seemed to be making him nauseous, and unlike Papyrus he knew very well that she wasn’t that kind of doctor. He wasn’t sure what she could offer besides some basic healing, and he wasn’t sure that could do anything for the splitting pain in his skull. Trying to articulate that was practically impossible, however. “Nnnh. Hurts.”

“I c-can help!” she insisted, although she didn’t sound very sure of herself either. Sans tried curling into a tighter ball, turning away from her, but without committing to actually moving his brittle body, he wasn’t going to escape her reach. With his good eye, he could see flickers of green sifting through her claws. He could feel the soothing touch of healing magic and for a moment he reconsidered, aching for the relief she might be able to offer--

\--something in him rebelled violently. He heaved, making an awful sound, feeling like he was about to throw-up, but instead of coming out of his mouth something hot and viscous gushed forcefully out of his eye. Dazed, he pulled back his hand. It was covered in a dark, tacky substance, thick and foreign, entirely the wrong colour to be his magic. 

Fuck.

“O-oh my god,” Alphys stuttered, sounding faint. “T-that’s…”

“What is it?” Papyrus asked, looming threateningly over her shoulder. 

Sans could see the look of pained confusion on Alphys’s face. “I...I don’t...know…”

“Quarantine,” Sans rasped out, pressing his hand back to his eye again. It didn’t help much. His metacarpals were useless for catching liquid. It dripped right through his bones, leaking out at a steady pace, but he tried to make sure it splattered on the floor as far away from Papyrus as he could manage.

“Y-yes!” Alphys agreed. “W-we need to lock down the floor. Quarantine everyone. Run some tests. We can’t let anyone else in until it’s safe, s-so-!”

Sans heaved a weary sigh. He’d helped write those quarantine protocols. It would be a couple of hours at least until anyone else would be cleared to access the floor, even assuming whatever was coming out of his eye wasn’t toxic or contagious in any way. So much for the medical team.

Papyrus cursed again, pulling out his phone. “Fine, but keep my brother alive until then.”

Those words almost made Sans smile a little. Then he felt another awful wave of pressure inside his skull and a fresh outpouring of dark fluid dribbled over his fingers. He actually felt slightly better once it passed, like his body was expelling something vile and unwanted, but the process was entirely unpleasant. 

“D-don’t worry, Sans,” Alphys said, awkwardly patting his shoulder, though clearly she didn’t want to get any closer. “Your HP doesn’t seem to be g-going down, so...everything will b-be fine.”

He really hoped she was right.

* * *

Alphys wasn’t going to be winning any awards for her healing skills or bedside manner, but once the quarantine team showed up she was much more useful at taking the samples they needed and even running some tests of her own in parts of the lab that hadn’t been taken offline. Sans ended up dozing in the corner through most of the boring wait, lulled by the background noise of Papyrus snarling orders into his phone. At some point his eye finally stopped discharging the bewildering black substance, and Alphys managed to scrounge up a patch of cotton gauze for him. 

When Undyne came back, she and Papyrus attempted to have a hushed conversation on the outskirts of Sans’s hearing range, but neither of them were particularly good at being quiet. It was enough to rouse him from the edge of unconsciousness. 

“We didn’t find a damn thing,” Undyne was saying, sounding unusually frustrated. Sans supposed she wasn’t used to being thwarted, and it probably didn’t help that he’d spent the first half of the day intentionally pissing her off. Shit, he felt a little bad for that now. “We searched every inch of the Experiment Rooms as well as the rest of the lab. I even had the security room check the footage, though it only covers the lobby and elevators on this floor. No one’s come out since we came in.”

“What about a magical trace?”

“Tried it. Didn’t find anything either, not in the room or the corridor-hey!”

Sharp footsteps warned Sans of his brother’s approach. He lifted his head, weakly holding out an arm. “H-hey, boss, don’t get too close. Quarantine’s not done with the scans yet.”

Papyrus halted, but didn’t look terribly happy about it. “Sans, this is important. I need you to describe your attacker. Any information might be critical in helping us track them down.”

“Uh…” Fuck. He scrabbled to get his thoughts in order, trying to remember what he’d seen. The whole encounter was a frantic blur, masked by swaths of shadow once the lights had gone out again. “I, uh. Didn’t see much of their face.”

The pain in his head had finally receded to a more tolerable level, but that didn’t seem to help clear up his muddled memories of the event. He tried to focus on that first starling moment he’d seen the strange figure bent over the console in the lab. “They were a monster. Tall.”

“How tall?” Papyrus pressed impatiently. Sans supposed that was fair since even people of average height looked kind of tall to Sans. 

He considered. “About your height. And they had these...arms. Really long arms.”

Disturbingly long, now that he thought about it. He shuddered to think of those predatory limbs reaching out at him from the dark.

He tried to think of more details, but it was so hard to force himself to think of it, like his mind was deliberately shying away from the memory. Their face had been bizarrely shadowed, or maybe it was just featureless and darkly coloured. Their clothing had been monochromatic. In fact their whole body had seemed oddly void of colour, but maybe that was some sort of camouflage to better blend in with the sterile features of the lab. 

“They had, uh..” The detail stalled on the tip of his tongue, and he frustratedly mimed something triangular resting on the top of his skull. “Something like horns or maybe ears? Didn’t really see what it was. Two of them on the head. They might have had fur too. No tail, though.”

They hadn’t been any of the blatantly recognisable monster sub-breeds, but that wasn’t unusual. Lots of monsters ended up being weird hybrids if their parents weren’t a close species match.

“I think they were wearing a lab coat?” he added after some thought. It had been long and pale, covering those unnatural arms. They might have used it to sneak in, maybe impersonating a member of the labs to get past security?

He glanced up to see how Papyrus and Undyne were dealing with his vague accounting only to find both of them were giving him strange looks. Undyne’s face was screwed up in something between disgust and pity. Papyrus looked...pained? Sans couldn’t quite decipher the emotion behind his expression, but it looked intensely uncomfortable, whatever it was.

“What?” he blurted, feeling uneasy. Something about his description must have resonated for them to look so perturbed. 

Rather than answering, Undyne turned to Papyrus. “Did you want me to organise another sweep, or…?”

“That...may not be necessary,” Papyrus said haltingly. “Keep your team on standby. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

“Yes sir,” she agreed, and though Sans would never accuse Undyne of fleeing, she did depart with an air of relief that suggested she was glad not to have to stick around for whatever conversation was about to follow.

Sans stared at his brother, bewilderment making him momentarily forget formalities. “Pap, what…?”

“Sans,” Papyrus interrupted, though he sounded more gentle and patient than Sans would have expected given the situation. “Are you absolutely sure you were attacked?”

“Y-yes?” Sans stammered, hating that his own reply sounded like a question, as if papyrus’s doubt were contagious. “Why would you...I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“I know,” Papyrus agreed, but he sounded alarmingly uncertain. “But given your...injury, you might not have the clearest understanding of what happened. You could be concussed or hallucinating or compromised in some way.”

Sans boggled at his brother. Sure, he was a little vague on the details, but that didn’t mean he’d imagined the whole thing. “I’m not that hurt. What the hell, Pap?”

Papyrus let out a heavy sigh, gesturing for Sans to wait a moment. He quickly flicked through the menus on his phone, bringing up a photo to display on the screen and turning it for Sans to see. “Does this look like the monster you believe you saw?”

Sans was tempted to make a scathing retort about how he didn’t believe anything, damnit, he knew what he’d seen, but all thoughts of resentment vanished at the sight of the picture. The small screen showed a monster just like the one he’d seen in the lab, but instead of being a pale ghost, their fur was a warm reddish colour and their face was clear and defined. They looked mostly feline, although there was a few conflicting features that hinted at something more unusual in their family tree. 

“That’s them,” he said, leaning in close, drinking in their image. Everything seemed to match what little he could remember, from their oddly jointed arms to the lab coat they were wearing in the photo. “Who the hell is it?”

But Papyrus didn’t seem enthused by Sans’s certainly. He only sighed. “That’s Doctor Miraclaw.”

Sans had heard that name recently. Very recently. Recognition hovered tantalisingly out of reach. “That’s uh…”

“One of the scientists who died in the accident,” Papyrus reminded him, his voice flat. 

“Right,” Sans agreed mindlessly before that knowledge sank in. A tense shudder ran up his spine. “So...he’s still alive?”

“No, Sans,” Papyrus corrected, sounding suddenly immensely tired. “He’s not.”

Sans shifted in confusion, looking up at his brother. “But…?”

“All the remains in the lab were tested. Doctor Miraclaw is most definitely deceased, and I have already released his dust to his family. There is no way you saw him in the lab. He could not have attacked you.” The look he gave Sans was similar to Undyne’s: full of pity. “You should lie down, brother. Rest until the medical team gets here.”

“But I…” Sans was sure of what he’d seen. He could still feel the ghostly impression of hands scrabbling around his throat. He’d felt it. The monster he’d seen was real. “I swear, I-”

“Sans,” Papyrus said, his voice full of warning, the last of his patience seeming to have exhausted itself. “Be quiet. Lie down.”

Much as he didn’t want to, Sans’s body automatically moved to follow his brother’s orders. He curled back up against his corner, tentatively feeling the bandage around his eye, trying to self-analyses his own senses as best he could. He wasn’t concussed. He hadn’t hit his head, and even if he had, it wouldn’t have affected his memory. Unlike fleshy monsters, his consciousness wasn’t centered in his skull; it emanated directly from his soul. 

So what the hell was going on?

Hallucinations, the science-oriented corner of his mind offered unhelpfully. From toxic contamination through his eye-socket. Or maybe from the irradiating effects of the faulty dampening field. If it was projecting some sort of broken, magic-suppressing signal, maybe it had messed with his senses enough that he’d had some kind of intense, improbable vision that was some amalgamation of nightmare and reality.

He hated that there was a depressing sort of sense in that. A slightly more likely scenario than encountering some strange assailant in the lab that left behind no trace of their existence. 

He wouldn’t know until Quarantine finished running their sweep, and Alphys was finished testing whatever it was that came out of his eye-socket. Suddenly he wasn’t comfortable going back to sleep until he somehow had a definite answer. He curled in on himself, doing his best to ignore the furtive glances Papyrus kept throwing his way.


	10. Chapter 10

Despite his apprehension, Sans had nearly managed to fall back asleep by the time Papyrus’s phone rang, its scream for attention jolting both brothers from their strained silence.

“Finally,” Papyrus grunted, his clawed phalange tapping the device hard enough it was surprising he didn’t crack the screen as he put the caller on speaker. “What did you find, Doctor Alphys?”

Sans sat up straighter. His eye had stopped leaking a while ago after expelling nearly a cup full of liquid. His socket felt unnervingly wet and sensitive, but he’d tentatively decided it was improving.

“R-results are promising!” Alphys said, the note of enthusiasm in her voice almost entirely eliminating her stutter. “I believe we can end the quarantine.”

“Thank fuck,” Sans groaned under his breath. Even knowing Undyne and her crew had cleared the place out, he couldn’t help but worry. He didn’t want his brother trapped in here a second longer than he had to be.

Papyrus didn’t seem as immediately relieved. His face was still set in an impatient scowl. “Tell me about the substance from my brother’s eye.”

“W-well, it’s an AMaMaHC.”

“Amamahc?” Papyrus repeated tightly.

If Sans rolled his eyelights any harder they might just shoot out of his skull and take flight. “It’s an Anomalous Magic-Matter Hybrid Compound…which describes pretty much every magic-matter compound ever studied. S’not a big deal.”

Attempting to apply science to magic had always been an imperfect, often frustrating challenge, which was why there were very few monsters who tried to reconcile the two fields. Science was about predictions, conventions and models. It was about finding ways to catagorise the world and its behaviors in a way that was reliable and repeatable. Investigating a sample of pure water always yielded oxygen and hydrogen atoms in a specific configuration. The structure of an atom had specific numbers of protons, electrons and neutrons in measurable weights with particular attributes that would always respond the same under set laboratory conditions.

But magic didn’t respond like that. It didn’t follow the laws of science or nature. Sure, there were certain spells and types of magic that could be shared and taught, but at the end of the day each expression of magic was unique and therefore in defiance of comparison or measurement. It took a certain amount of genius to begin inferring any sort of pattern or structure in the nature of magic, which was what set Gaster apart from the rest of his peers. There were many monsters who became scientists, but only one real success when it came to monsters who used science to study magic.

An AMaMaHC – besides being an acronym that was fun to say but annoying to write, and was probably the crowning achievement of whichever scientist had coined the phrase for how often it got used – was just a glop of matter and magic that didn’t exist in the admittedly patchy registry of such substances, but that didn’t mean anything. Many monster scientists who cared to debate such things argued about the need to even keep a registry. It was like recording the attributes of every grain of sand that had ever been discovered. An interesting data set if looked at individually, but largely pointless.

Papyrus didn’t seem as mollified by this information as Sans, but he wasn’t a scientist. Sans raised his voice to ask Alphys, “So what about the rest of the checks?”

“It’s non-toxic, non-corrosive, non-reactive…pretty much a negative across every test we have,” Alphys told him.

“Huh.” Sans thought about that for a moment, slightly perturbed. “So it’s a whole lot of nothing?”

“Pretty much,” Alphys agreed, her voice mirroring that same quality of not-quite-unease.

A complete null on all the tests wasn’t normal. Magic residue was usually volatile in some way or another, being made of unstable energy no longer bound to a host, but it was a far better outcome than Sans had dared to hope for. Sure, it was a bit disconcerting to have some unknown substance leaking out of his skull, but better that than finding out he’d somehow contracted the dangerous magical contagion that might have killed his father’s lab team.

“What does that mean?” Papyrus asked, stamping his foot impatiently. He looked almost petulant, the same irritated scowl on his face that he’d always worn when Sans and Gaster were talking in a language of science that went way over the youngest skeleton’s head. It wasn’t that Papyrus wasn’t smart. Perhaps if he’d ever been given the opportunity he could have excelled at science the way Sans had – it was just his personal attributes were clearly more suited to a different set of skills, and Gaster had utilised his second son in the most efficient manner possible. Papyrus was clearly made to manage people, and therefore the company on a whole, taking on the areas Gaster himself was least interested in managing except where it offered the financial success he needed to pursue his science. As much as Gaster had been a control-freak, the daily operations of the company were too trivial for his intellect, which was why he’d pushed Papyrus to take that role.

Sans, meanwhile, was trained as a lab assistant, to be an additional set of hands and a sounding board for ideas. For years he’d been little more than an extension of Gaster himself, like extra RAM and processing power in a computer, there to make Gaster’s job easier in the Laboratory but not to question, not to innovate.

Sans shook his head, staving off the heavy, bitter memories. “It means we’re fine, Boss. It’s not contagious or dangerous. We can clear the floor.”

“What about you?” Papyrus’s eyelights scoured him fiercely, as if looking for imperfections. “Do I need to take you to a hospital?”

Sans made a face, resisting the temptation to poke at his eyesocket again. It still didn’t feel quite right, like there was something lodged inside it. “Nah. I mean, we can get the medical team to take a look, if you want, but it’s probably just some kind of magical discharge…maybe from calling up the Blaster. It’s been a while since I did that.”

Like dust in engine oil maybe, he thought to himself dryly. Something stagnant and atrophied shaken loose inside his skull. It was an easy, safe explanation, and he clung to it stubbornly.

“Um…” Alphys said awkwardly over the speaker, clearly uncomfortable being privy to the personal exchange. Sans looked away, fighting embarrassment and Papyrus straightened his posture with remarkable aplomb.

“Thank you, Doctor Alphys. Please organise the medical team to come through and have Undyne regroup her team back at the entryway. We will see you shortly.”

The phone was tucked neatly back into the interior pocket of Papyrus’s jacket, and Sans labouriously staggered to his feet, drifting back to his brother’s side. “What now?”

An accusing finger was jabbed rudely only an inch from his nasal cavity. “You are going with the medical team. No arguments.”

Sans groaned discontentedly. Normally he might have been happy to take the excuse to skip out on further work for a couple of hours, but not when his brother might need him. “What about you?”

“I’ll be taking care of things,” Papyrus said, gesturing for Sans to follow as he began marching towards the entryway.

The vagueness of the answer didn’t sit well with Sans. “What about the investigation?”

“Consider it on hold until we get reports gathered from every division involved in today’s incident.”

The more time passed, the less likely it would be that they would find solid answers. Evidence would decay, memories would fade, and the possible perpetrator would be given more time to cover their tracks. “What about the person I saw in the lab?”

Papyrus hesitated for a moment, then heaved a heavy sigh. “Sans-”

“There was someone there,” Sans insisted fervently, trying not to think of the clammy impression of hands pawing at his body. “They musta had a disguise or something to look like the Doc, but-”

“Why disguise themselves as a deceased monster?” Papyrus questioned archly. “That charade would only make them look more suspicious, not less so.”

Sans couldn’t honestly say he had a good answer for that, but a lack of solid reasoning had never stopped him from going with his gut; one of the few areas where his methods and Gaster’s had differed. “Maybe that’s the only disguise they have. They could have used it to sneak in here in the first place, and now they’re keeping it on to hide their identity.”

“And hide where, exactly? Undyne and her team have searched this entire floor multiple times, and so did the independent investigation team from law enforcement. The floor is sealed. There’s no way for anyone to get in or out without notice.”

“Maybe there is!” Sans bit back hotly.

“Then why would the perpetrator still be here?” Papyrus retorted, his voice just as sharp.

Sans winced. Admittedly, that was a good point. If there was a way for a saboteur to get in and out of the labs, why would they have come back? Why now? Why show themselves to Sans? “They…could have left something behind? Something they needed to get rid of before we found it.”

Surely the timing couldn’t have been coincidental, but how would they have known the investigation was happening today? Even Sans hadn’t known until his brother had ordered him down here, and Alphys had seemed similarly ignorant. He doubted Undyne would have warned her team in advance (she liked to keep them on their toes) and of the many things Sans doubted in the world, Undyne’s loyalty to his brother wasn’t one of them.

Though maybe he was thinking about this the wrong way. Maybe it wasn’t their internal investigation the perpetrator had been trying to head off, but instead they’d been waiting for law enforcement to finish so they could come back when the floor was empty. That made more sense, and if so, tracking the leaked information would be significantly more difficult.

“Every report I’ve received so far indicates that it’s significantly more likely the deaths were caused by some element existing within the Lab itself,” Papyrus told him, exhibiting an air of strained patience. “Until we discover the exact cause, I don’t feel comfortable leaving personnel on this floor. It’s too isolated from the rest of the building, and the difficulties with access and power make it too much of a risk.”

“But what if there is an intruder?” Sans argued back, feeling an ugly combination of resentment and rage. “If they cover their tracks, we might never find out what happened! Damnit, Pap, why the hell won’t you  _trust me_?”

Papyrus fixed him with a piercing stare, his jaw clenching tightly. Sans knew he was pushing his luck – normally he wouldn’t get away with challenging his brother so directly and persistently, and it was completely underhanded to call their familial tie into the argument. Normally Papyrus would have shut him down by now, but he was worried about Sans, and Sans was abusing that.

When Papyrus spoke next, the words were clipped and cold. “Are you really so invested in finding out what happened to our father, Sans, or are you only interested in proving you are right?”

The accusation was as brutal as a slap. Sans’s arguments evaporated, shocked out of existence. His brother could be harsh, sometimes, and brash…but not cruel. Never that. That was Gaster’s influence speaking through him.

“Does the safety of our staff mean less to you than your theory?” Papyrus persisted, his hands clenched to fists. “That may be how our Father used to run things, but that’s not a legacy I intend to continue.”

Sans rocked back on his heels, speechless. Of all the things he’d expected, for Papyrus to compare him to Gaster…unthinkable. And horribly ironic for it to occur right after he’d had the same thought of Papyrus.

But who was right?

_You are_ , the quiet, seething voice of his subconscious insisted.  _He’s always put the company first. He never listens to you. He doesn’t understand what you’ve seen, what you’ve been through._

“Hey!”

Undyne’s sharp voice started both brothers from their painful, angry silence. She glared at them both like they were personally responsible for the gamut of frustrations she’d been put through. “Hurry up. I wanna get the hell out of here and debrief my team.”

At the far end of the hall, Sans could see the rest of their contingent, including Alphys’s hunched form. Beyond them was the ominous door leading to the decontamination chamber.

“We’re coming,” Papyrus said, pointedly turning away from Sans with every indication that he considered their conversation over. “Give me a status update.”

“Right,” Undyne agreed, falling into step beside Papyrus, leaving Sans to trail along weakly in their wake, the ache in his eye-socket pounding in time with the fury and hurt of the argument ringing in his skull.  

—————————————————

“I don’t need to lean on you, I’m fine,” Sans snapped, and not for the first time. He swatted away Papyrus’s reaching hands, ignoring all proprietary to stomp past his brother, walking ahead of him just so he didn’t have to keep seeing Papyrus’s sharp, concerned eyelights silently appraising him. He imagined this show of gruff concern was Papyrus’s way of conveying there were no hard feelings after their fight, but Sans wasn’t in a receptive enough mood to welcome it. The two had barely spoken for the rest of the day, Papyrus being much too busy wrapping up the investigation and Sans practically under guard by the medical staff. He’d had hours to stew in sour feelings and wasn’t ready to let go of it yet.

With all the hassle, they hadn’t make it back to Papyrus’s apartment until three in the morning; way too late for Sans to bring up his request for different lodgings. He was too tired to care that he’d be spending another night under his brother’s roof, and in any case, the medical team had cautiously advised that someone should keep an eye on Sans for the next 48 hours just in case he showed any more unusual symptoms.

Just in case he hallucinated any more strange visions, Sans silently interpreted, trying not to feel bitter.

He was pretty sure they were only covering their own asses, because their examination of him had turned up precisely nothing besides the expected scuffs of invisible bruises on his bones where he’d hit the floor after falling. The mysterious gunk in his eye-socket had been run through another myriad of tests that still came back with no solid answers and was being tentatively treated as harmless.

He got all the way to the front door before being forced to stop, belatedly realising he didn’t have a key to let himself in. It was a small inconvenience, but it didn’t at all improve his mood.

Papyrus’s patience seemed just as strained. “Sans, you are being ridiculous-”

“And you’re being an asshole,” Sans sneered back. It wasn’t his best comeback by a mile, but his head was a fog of exhaustion and lingering pain. He felt hungover without any of the pleasantly mind-numbing build-up. “Don’t fucking coddle me.”

“I’m just concerned for your health! And watch your mouth, I’m still your Boss-!”

“You’re not my boss at three in the fucking morning, boss.” The last word was curdled with enough vitriol to sound like a swear word. “Open the damn door or I’m bringing out the blasters again.”

Papyrus made an utterly outraged noise, but some part of him must have thought Sans sounded sincere because he was quick to step forward and unlock the front door. Sans rudely shoved past him again, staggering towards his bedroom.

“I’m going to bed,” he called over his shoulder, hurling the words as more of a warning than an announcement. Normally Papyrus’s longer legs would have no trouble closing the distance between them, but Sans could move fast when he needed.

“Sans-!”

The bedroom door was slammed shut with an air of finality. Sans leaned his back against it just to be sure, but if there was one thing he could trust it was his brother’s sense of manners. He could practically feel Papyrus hovering on the other side, fighting the need to disturb the sanctity of Sans’s space even if it still technically belonged to Papyrus, but after a moment he heard his brother sigh audibly and walk away.

Sans sighed too, pressing both hands over his aching eye-sockets, reflecting on what a miserable fuck-up he was.

With heavy, stumbling steps, he made it close enough to the bed to flop haphazardly onto its surface, groaning vehemently into the blankets. Now he’d had a moment of space to clear his head, he regretted being so vicious to Papyrus. Sans didn’t do well under intensive scrutiny. It reminded him too keenly of Gaster’s invasive, demeaning assessments – the overbearing weight of his judgement that had once turned Sans into an anxious, pliable slave until he’d learned to push back, masking his weakness with anger and resentment. It brought out the worst in him.

He knew he hadn’t been entirely fair to his brother. Papyrus was just working with the information he had, making the most efficient and sensible choices. The small part of Sans that felt furious and betrayed that Papyrus hadn’t listened to him, hadn’t trusted him…well, Sans hadn’t really done anything worthy of that trust, so who could blame him.

Sans’s company records were a testament to his poor work ethic, his unscrupulous tactics to avoid responsibility, his belligerent behavior and overall lack of usefulness. It didn’t matter that Gaster had pushed him into that role, Sans had embraced it rather than fought against it, letting himself become little more than a parasitic tumor in the company body, too difficult to excise and not malignant enough to do anything about.

Sans let out a harsh, bitter chuckle, letting the sound be muffled by the mattress. No wonder Papyrus thought he was delusional. What was one more dubious assessment on Sans’s already patchy reputation? Who’s to say what really happened in that Lab. Maybe he really was…

_No, don’t think about it yet_ , he reprimanded himself.  _Sleep on it first before deciding that you’re crazy._

It should have been an easy directive to follow. Sans was exhausted, and the throbbing in his head wasn’t receding. Unconsciousness would have been a blessing, but even though his boneless sprawl was remarkably comfortable, his soul wouldn’t settle. The darkness of the room should have been soothing, but something about it set his teeth on edge, reminding him of that disconcerting non-place.

_Dark, darker, yet darker…_

Jolting with an unpleasant start, Sans hastily rolled over and switched on the lamp beside the bed. The room was cast in a warm, rosy hue, chasing the shadows away to the corners. It was a childish impulse, as if light could drive away the unsettling image of the long-armed monster’s faceless visage, but somehow it still made him feel better. Not enough for sleep to seem feasible, but Sans would take what he could get.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know 2017 hasn't been a great year for fic writing from me, but I'm really hoping to turn that around in 2018. T AT9!! Thank you to everyone leaving me lovely comments and support for this fic, and being so enthusiastic to see me continue it.

Sans was used to long, sleepless nights plagued by anxious and terror-ridden thoughts. He should be old hat at this; he had plenty of unpleasant memories from his early days in Gaster’s laboratory, when his father had bemoaned how much progress was lost simply because the official processes for recruiting authorised test subjects were far too restrictive and small-minded to understand his intentions. He’d also made it clear that he was willing to experiment on himself if necessary, and once upon a time Sans had still been idealistic enough and loyal enough to fear what a terrible loss it would be for monsters everywhere if something were to happen to his father.

Gaster’s brilliance and knowledge were irreplaceable. Sans was nobody special. It was clear which one of them should be put at risk while Gaster worked to pick apart the monster soul, trying to understand its inner workings.

And some truly profound insights had come from those experiments. Astounding discoveries. Unexpected revelations. Painful limitations. But of course, there was no way Gaster could publish any of his findings -- not without revealing his questionable methods to reach them, and in any case Sans doubted many would be willing to attempt reproducing some of those experiments after the devastating effect they’d had on Sans’s health.

(Gaster had only stopped when he’d been forced to concede that Sans likely wouldn’t survive any further modifications to his Soul, and he wasn’t willing to endure the inconvenience of the board’s inquest into an unexpected death on the company records. 

He’d made a point to remind Sans frequently that he’d been much more useful as a test subject than lab assistant.)

There was plenty of trauma left over from those agonising few years. Sometimes he came awake gasping at the phantom sensation of needles puncturing into his soul. Sometimes the weight of the tethers that bound the Blasters to his magic weighed on him like a crushing pressure, making him feel like he was suffocating in the dark despite his lack of need for air. Those were familiar nightmares, at least, and even if they kept him up at night at least their frequency made them relatively bearable. 

Now he had a fresh set of disturbing memories to contend with. The harrowing sensation of a clawed hand closing around his ankle. The terrifying feeling of being pinned to the floor, his hands clawing futility at the shapeless weight of his attacker. That horrifying, endless emptiness he’d briefly fallen into. Every time his exhausted body started to drift towards sleep, the feeling of his senses shutting down would strike him with a fresh stab of dread, startling him back to panicked wakefulness. The weight of the blanket also proved to be unbearable, and he frustratedly kicked it off to escape the phantom memory of being smothered. It left him slightly chilled, especially with the anxious sweat cooling on his bones, but if the temperature was uncomfortable then at least he could take some relief in how it kept prickling at his senses, prevalent and  _ real _ . 

It gave him something else to focus on besides the aggravated throbbing of his eye-socket. The medical team had given him a thicker, more sturdy patch even though his eye had stopped leaking shortly after they’d left Gaster’s lab. It still didn’t feel quite right, though, as if something had gotten lodged behind his eye-light, pressing unpleasantly against the inside of his skull. He kept having to remind himself that  there was no way that was possible, and firmly kept his hands fisted in the sheets so he wouldn’t be tempted to scratch at the itching discomfort.

Real sleep was impossible, but eventually his exhaustion hit a peak where his mind had mostly emptied out and everything felt a little detached and surreal. It was almost as good as a drunken stupor, complete with impossible, wishful visions of Papyrus leaning over him, eye-lights full of soft concern…

...wait, no, that was actually happening.

“Sans?” 

Sans blinked dazedly, feeling slow and stupid. Was it morning already…? Surely Papyrus wouldn’t have any other reason to be in his room if not to badger him out of bed to get to work. A quick glance at the unshaded window proved it was still dark outside, however, and Papyrus didn’t look wound-up or impatient. Instead his body language seemed almost hesitant as he leaned over his brother, one hand hovering uncertainty over Sans’s sternum. Sans felt the inquisitive brush of his brother’s magic against his own in an unmistakable CHECK.

“Hnugh?” Sans gurgled ineloquently. Even if he hadn’t really been asleep, he wasn’t sure he wanted to commit to being properly awake, but if Papyrus was here it must have been for something important.

Except Papyrus didn’t say anything more, just staring down at his brother with an expression Sans couldn’t read. Maybe if he’s been less fatigued he could have deciphered the tension coiled tight in his brother’s spine and the way his eye own sharp eye-lights flickered with some unrepressed emotion. Sans made another slurred sound of inquiry, which seemed to snap him from his focused scrutiny.

“The medical team advised me to keep an eye on you,” Papyrus offered gruffly, by way of explanation. “I need to check in every couple of hours and make sure you’re still cognizant and able to focus. How are you feeling?”

Sans distantly recalled that he was still supposed to be mad at his brother, but trying to call up his anger was way too much effort for right now, and any lingering resentment dulled under the low hint of apology in his brother’s tone. Even if Papyrus was also still pissed, he evidently wasn’t going to let it get in the way of safeguarding Sans’s health.

“Tired,” Sans rasped honestly, letting his eye-lights dim until his vision was barely focused. It made the throbbing inside his skull more manageable. “Head hurts.”

Papyrus’s phalanges twitched uncertainly before lowering down to press against Sans’s sternum with more gentleness than many would have thought him capable of. Sans let out a deep sigh, his body shuddering once before going slack as the worst of the pain seeped away. The medical team had done what they could, but the best kind of healing could only be conjured between monsters who sincerely cared for each other.

(The sheer intent of his brother’s magic and the relief it offered was more than Sans had expected from it. He refused to think about it too hard; Papyrus’s control and focus had always been excellent, after all.)

Tingling warmth suffused his bones, and the pleasant aftershocks didn’t abate even when Papyrus finally pulled his hand away, shaking out his carpels as one would do with a stiff joint or an unpracticed muscle. 

“Go back to sleep. I’ll return again in two hours.”

Something twisted in Sans’s soul as Papyrus moved to turn away, and before he could think better of it his hand shot out to grab his brother’s wrist before it could recede out of his reach.

“Wait.”

The word seemed to take all the breath out of his non-existent lungs, leaving him without any way to follow it up. Papyrus looked down at him with concern, his gaze lingering on the padded gauze still covering Sans’s previously-leaking eye. “Is the pain still bad? Should I call the doctor?”

Sans shook his head, only able to force the words out when Papyrus’s free hand moved threateningly towards his phone. “S’fine. Feels better.”

Papyrus gave him a suspicious frown before his shoulders relaxed marginally. “Then do you need something?”

“No...” Sans murmured, his hold on Papyrus loosening. He should let go. He was being ridiculous. Emotional. Cowardly. It was stupid to want Papyrus to stay, his presence banishing the ghosts that lingered in the corners of the room and the folds of the sheet. It was wrong to find comfort in the way he could feel heat radiating from the spaces between Papyrus’s carpels where magic held the bones together. It was irrational, the way his soul throbbed in longing for those precious but irretrievable days when Papyrus’s care was something that he could have asked for.

He was making a terrible mistake, but Sans’s whole life was one long sequence of terrible mistakes.

“Then what…?” Papyrus’s exasperated question cut off abruptly, stalled by whatever it was he found saw in Sans’s expression, in the heavy droop of his sockets and quavering of his fixed grin. The silence hung between them, too loaded and fragile to risk breaking until Papyrus turned away with a short scoff. “You haven’t been sleeping.”

“No,” Sans confessed, almost relieved by Papyrus’s dismissive assessment.

Papyrus very deliberately didn’t look at him. “Then you might as well join me in the study. I have some documents I need to review, and it would be more convenient to have you nearby so I don’t need to break from my work.”

It was like a massive weight was eased off Sans’s shoulders. His expression crumpled into something pathetically grateful. “Sure. Makes sense, Boss.”

Something pained flitted across Papyrus’s face. His next words were spoken with halting care. “I’m  _ not  _ your Boss outside of the building. But. I would like to think I am still your brother.”

Sans blinked, not quite able to decipher if that was a confession of sorts or just Papyrus being his pedantic self, but before he could think of a decent reply he suddenly found himself lifted into his brother’s long arms. Sans squawked in protest, flailing clumsily before clinging to his brother’s neck for dear life.

“Pap,” he tried to sound stern, injecting a hint of a growl into his voice, but the words came out more anxious than irritated.

“The Doctor said you shouldn’t overexert yourself, Papyrus informed him primly. “Really, brother, when have you ever complained about an opportunity to be lazy.”

Sans certainly objected to it when it meant being coddled. Papyrus had done enough of that over the years, always being extra careful of Sans’s low stamina and frail body. Being carried by his brother wasn’t unfamiliar, although it had been a long time…

Sans swallowed back painful nostalgia, and the instinctive shame and outrage that came with always being so weak compared to Papyrus. Weak in body and weak in mind, or else he’d have insisted his brother put him down. Instead he felt his face heat and buried it against Papyrus’s shoulder to hide the tell-tale glow as Papyrus carried him from the room and down the hall to one of the rooms Sans hadn’t investigated yet. 

As Papyrus had implied, it was a study. The room’s configuration was eeriely similar to Gaster’s office, including the tall bookshelves (although Sans managed to spy that the majority of titles were on business, international trade and...cooking?) and the familiar looking couch. It turned out to be just as excruciatingly comfortable when Papyrus lowered Sans down onto it, settling his brother amongst the overstuffed cushions.

“There,” Papyrus said, sounding oddly satisfied. Sans stayed stiff, trying to decide if his dignity was really willing to accept this situation, but then Papyrus gave him a pointed nudge that forced him to recline back and suddenly gravity seemed much too heavy to fight against. “Now sleep.”

Sans’s body surged with a dizzying urge to obey that order, and with only a begrudging scoff at his brother’s attempt to command him right after claiming not to be his boss, Sans laid his head down and emptied out his sockets.

Even with his eyelights extinguished he could still make out the room in dim, blurred shadows. He watched his brother’s towering form move to the desk, taking up his seat with imperious ease. It took only a few moments before Sans could hear the distinctive click of bony fingers on a keyboard, indicating his brother was getting right back into his previous task despite Sans’s intrusive presence in his space. 

Heh. His brother was really damn cool sometimes. 

Slowly his mind emptied out again, lulled by the soft, companionable noises of Papyrus at work. Somehow, though, he couldn’t bring himself to completely close his un-bandaged eye when it would mean giving up the reassuring image of Papyrus’s pale bones almost glowing in the soft light of the room.

 

* * *

The first three times Papyrus nudged him awake, pressing Sans to prove his coherence and in one instance forcing him to drink a glass of water, he readily allowed Sans to fall back into his light, dreamless doze after only a few minutes. The fourth time, however, he shook Sans’s shoulder with much greater insistence.

“Sans! Enough boondoggling. It’s morning.”

“Uuugh,” Sans groaned in effusive displeasure. Even though the last few hours had been surprisingly peaceful, he didn’t feel even remotely rested. His head was still throbbing faintly, Papyrus’s healing having worn off hours ago, and his body felt leaden and slow, still clumsy with exhaustion.

But fuck, it didn’t matter how miserable he felt. There was always the contract hanging over his head, forcing him to drag himself across the company threshold even if he was half-dead with illness, or face the consequences. 

“Fine,” he allowed grudgingly, levering himself upright. Not even the magnificent comfort of the couch saved him from the stiffness in his bones, making him feel like a skeleton thrice his age. 

Papyrus frowned at him, eye-sockets narrow. “You don’t look well.”

Sans shrugged indifferently. It didn’t really matter how he felt. “When are we going?”

“Breakfast first!” Papyrus scolded, shooing his brother from the study and down the adjoining hall. As far as Sans could tell, Papyrus hadn’t slept at all, so how he could still have the energy for nagging was completely beyond him. Papyrus had always been like that though, and Gaster was the same. It had something to do with the way the manalines through their bodies were constructed, requiring a constant, sustained output to keep their magic reserves manageable. Gaster had been both delighted and disappointed at that particular discovery, since it also meant that while the two of them were nearly tireless in stamina, their overall magical capacity was strictly capped within a range of their usual daily output. In contrast, Sans’s magical ability could be far greater in short bursts. He could empty out nearly the entirety of his full potential in massive displays of energy and power...so long as he didn’t mind the extended exhaustion and painful regrets that came afterwards. 

Sans wearily staggered into the kitchen with Papyrus close on his heels. He allowed Papyrus to steer him over to the table, taking up a chair without resistance. Papyrus hovered just long enough to be sure Sans’s swaying posture wasn’t going to topple him from his seat before moving into the kitchen.

“How do you want your eggs?” Papyrus asked, gracefully unearthing a skillet and a spatula from the hoard of cooking utensils in his cupboards. He even stopped to tie on an apron, which might have set Sans off into a fit of absurd laughter in any other circumstances.

“Any way is fine,” Sans replied distantly, folding his arms into a makeshift pillow so he could rest his head on the table. He was pretty sure he could feel his brother’s concern alight on him like a physical weight,  but when he shifted his gaze Papyrus was concentrating hard on cracking an egg into the heating pan. The shell broke with an overly-enthusiastic crunch. Papyrus stared down at the result, his mouth curling in a dissatisfied frown before he firmly pronounced, “Scrambled, then.”

Sans allowed himself a weak snort. His brother moved with confidence and grace in the kitchen, but it seemed that didn’t actually translate into any actual skill with cooking.

“Don’t gotta bother if we’re running late,” Sans told him, although he was less concerned about punctuality than he was about the way Papyrus stabbed at the eggs with the spatula as if he was trying to kill them. His internal clock was starting to give him low, warning signals though, telling him he should have been on the subway and speeding towards the inner city by now. “Shouldn’t we be going?”

“No,” Papyrus retorted with unexpected sternness, giving the contents of the pan another probing attack. After another moment, he clarified, “I will be attending my duties remotely today and  _ you  _ will be resting.”

Sans gaped a little, almost wondering if maybe in his exhaustion he hadn’t heard his brother correctly. Stars, it would be nice if that could happen, but- “Pap. I can’t…”

“Of course you can,” Papyrus corrected, unearthing a plate from beneath the counter. Just one, Sans noted distantly. Wasn’t he eating too? 

Sans scrubbed aggravatedly at his skull. “No I  _ can’t _ . The contract-”

“I  _ hold  _ the contract,” Papyrus growled, unexpectedly aggressive. Or maybe that was just because the eggs were fighting to stay stuck to the bottom his pan instead of allowing themselves to be moved to the plate. “And there is a exclusionary clause that allows you to perform duties off-site so long as you remain bound by company regulation and are supervised by a representative ranked senior associate manager or better. I am sure I don’t need to inform you that my current title is sufficient to meet that requirement.”

Papyrus strutted over and placed the plate down in front of Sans. The eggs were charred in some places and gooey in others, but despite the confronting health and safety violation occurring in front of him, Sans couldn’t take his eyes off his brother. Papyrus’s eyelights were practically glowing with commanding resolution. “So as you superior I order you to remain in this residence on standby until I am ready to reassign you. Is that clear?”

There was a long, tense pause between them. Papyrus’s shoulders were loose but set, indicating he was ready to fight Sans on this point if necessary. 

But Sans only laughed -- the sound so loud and unexpected in the silence that Papyrus actually jumped a little. 

“Oh geeze,” Sans said, grinning so hard his face actually hurt a little. “Well, sure Boss, if that’s what you want.”

Papyrus’s shoulders slumped in relief. Had he really thought Sans would argue with him just to be difficult about it? Surely he realised Sans was just as eager to screw the contract in any way he could, delighting in the knowledge that Gaster would be furious if he ever found out. He’d been so careful to write in additional clauses and restrictions, trying to leave Sans without any room for escape...but of course Papyrus had found a way.

There must have been a blatant show of admiration and gratitude on Sans’s face, because Papyrus quickly turned away, unable to stand the sentiment. 

“I need to return to work. Eat your eggs,” he said gruffly, turning to leave the kitchen with such haste that he actually forgot to remove the apron he was wearing. Sans watched him go with amusement. Then he turned his gaze down to the plate in front of him, heaving a cringing sigh. It was only because he sincerely loved his brother that he dared to pick up a fork and take a tentative bite of the eggs in the midpoint between the black char and the runny yolks. The taste made his eyes water. God, it was atrocious, but the nature of monster cooking also made it incredibly potent. He could feel Papyrus’s worry and fierce protectiveness seasoning the food with a rush of energy that hit his soul harder than a dozen cups of black coffee. It chased away the worst of his fatigue, and even his eye-socket felt intensely better. It was some kind of miracle. 

He looked down at the food, both perturbed and impressed. And then, fuck it, he dove into the meal with more gusto even though the taste nearly made him want to gag. No sense wasting it, and it was kind of nice having that feeling of Papyrus watching over him settling into his bones with every mouthful. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After asking for reader opinions on tumblr, I'm going to be working on For Business or Pleasure for the entirety of January and hopefully will get it pretty close to finished. I'm hoping to release 1-2 chapters per week, so check back regularly! Also, chapters tend to be posted first on my tumblr, so you may want to join me there, especially if you want to send asks or questions about what may be coming since I'm more active on that platform.
> 
> But a special thank you to everyone who left a comment on the last chapter. *_* It was incredibly inspiring, how much interest there still is in this fic despite the long break!

It took less than an hour of fitful tossing and turning in bed before Sans frustratedly conceded that sleep was still not happening. Even after the dubious eggs had settled in his metaphorical gut, he just couldn’t seem to convince himself to relax. His bedroom didn’t feel safe, not even with the curtains drawn back to let in the sunlight. Disgruntled, he stomped back to Papyrus’s study, relieved to find the door was already open, sparing him the awkward act of knocking and having to somehow explain himself.

“Can’t sleep anyway, so I might as well get something done,” he said to Papyrus’s arch, inquiring expression. “You got anything for me, Boss?”

Papyrus’s expression twisted into something not entirely pleased, but he grudgingly pushed a few files across the desk in Sans’s direction. Sans was quick to snap them up before Papyrus could change his mind.

“I don’t have another office, so you can work there,” Papyrus said, pointing to the couch. “Just don’t distract me.”

“Sure thing, Boss.” Papyrus gave him a stern look, like he thought Sans’s blithe agreement was mockery in disguise, but the shorter skeleton’s unassuming grin gave nothing away. With a surprisingly heavy sigh, Papyrus waved Sans off and returned his attention to the thick stack of reports sitting in front of him.

Sans would admit that at least part of his motivation was concern for his brother. Papyrus hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten, and Sans was pretty sure he’d barely done either since taking over the company. Even with his near inexhaustible stamina, Papyrus was probably overdue for a hard crash some time in the next day or so. It wouldn’t be the first time.

So he was grateful to have a prime position from which to keep an eye on Papyrus; better still that it was the comfiest couch in the house. He spread open the files on his lap, expecting to find himself with a load of tedious busy work -- something from the financial department, or maybe (god forbid) the latest middle management meeting. Instead he found a collection of profiles for some of the most prominent names in the company, people whom Sans had rubbed shoulders with once when he was still his father’s lackey and who had practically fallen over themselves to express their admiration for Gaster’s achievements, to pledge their loyalty to his work. Their promises didn’t count for much, apparently. The first profile was attached to a long sheet of records clearly showcasing a history of embezzlement from one of the company accounts. The second had a long email exchange clearly discussing the sale of inside information and company secrets. At the bottom of the file was a sheaf of blank termination notices that Sans was clearly supposed to be filling in, and he did so feeling faintly appalled as he worked through the rest of the file. 

Theft. Blackmail. Bullying. Sexual harassment. Bribery. Negligence. There was a deep root of corruption in the upper levels that Papyrus clearly had no intention of tolerating. It was faintly astounding his brother had uncovered it all so quickly, but then that had always been one of his brother’s particular talents. He had a good sense for whenever someone was doing the wrong thing, and could sniff it out with the same finesse as one of Undyne’s canine guards. It took Sans the better part of an hour before he finished them all. He eyed his messy handwriting carefully before gathering all the papers back up and tentatively approaching his brother’s desk again. Papyrus had barely moved the entire time, though now the shadows under his eye-sockets seemed darker. No wonder he wasn’t sleeping much.

“You’re, uh. Really getting down to business now that you’re in charge, huh?” he said, tentatively sliding the completed forms back across the desk. 

Papyrus jerked slightly, having been too deep in concentration to have noticed Sans’s approach. With a little shake he drew himself up, taking back the forms with a scoff. “It’s well overdue. I’m sure our father would have taken care of these cretins himself had he been paying attention-”

He cut himself off suddenly, shooting Sans a guilty look that might have been funny under other circumstances. Sans forced his bones to relax, having unintentionally hunched with tension at the passing mention of their father. 

The old bastard really shouldn’t have that sort of power over them, Sans thought sourly, and forced himself to ask, “How is he doin’?”

Papyrus let out a tight breath, his gaze looking at some point over Sans’s shoulder rather than directly at him. “No change.”

“What...does that mean, exactly?” Sans asked carefully. He wasn’t even sure himself if it was ill-fitting concern or morbid curiosity that made him ask. The details in the report Papyrus had shown him had been vague at best.

Papyrus was silent, and for a moment it looked like he might not answer the question, before he haltingly offered, “He’s in a stable but comatose condition. His body has shown no signs of consciousness or response to stimuli since the accident. There was enough magic left in his body to hold his bones together, but as it’s not self-replenishing he’s being given constant transfusions to prevent further decay. Doctors were unable to access his soul, and for some reason are unable to properly CHECK him, so determining the underlying cause of his condition has been...difficult.”

Sans hissed lowly through his teeth. The symptoms sounded an awful lot like how one would describe a monster about to Fall Down...aside from the CHECK thing. That was weird. “Where did they find a compatible donor?”

“I volunteered, of course,” Papyrus said dismissively.

Sans jerked, staring at his brother with fresh eyes; taking in the slight droop in his normally impeccable posture, the tiny, telling rattle of his phalanges. “Shit, Pap…”

“Don’t curse in front of your superior,” Papyrus scolded. When Sans continued to stare at him he pointedly added, “I’m fine. I have no need of magic in my current position.”

“What if something happened?” Sans challenged, thinking of the incident in the lab, of the daily death threats the company received.

“That’s why I have Undyne and her team on stand-by,” Papyrus pointed out. “To prevent trouble.”

Sans didn’t feel reassured. He didn’t like the idea of his brother sacrificing his magic, not to mention, with the way his reserves worked, it would be dangerous for him to lose much below his natural baseline. 

If either of them was donating magic, it should have been… “I could-”

“No,” Papyrus said, shutting him down immediately.

Sans’s expression must have looked faintly hurt, because Papyrus gave another deep sigh. “I’m well aware that your magical reserves are deeper than mine, brother, and perhaps you would argue that you need it less...but the Doctors warned me that our father’s being is currently extremely vulnerable, and all magic carries its owner’s intent. They only permitted me to donate once I was able to demonstrate that I carried nothing but the sincere wish to see him recover. I doubt, given the circumstances, that you could do the same.”

Sans was torn between self-righteous indignation and guilt, each fighting for prominence, but despite what he would have feared, Papyrus didn’t seem to be judging him. His own expression looked faintly conflicted.

“Even now, I’m not certain I could repeat the procedure so easily a second time. Not after learning how he’s been treating you in my absence.”

Immediately, most of Sans’s ugly, poisonous feelings evaporated. It felt like Papyrus had suckerpunched him, leaving him feeling dazed but somehow lighter than before. “O-oh.”

The silence hung awkwardly between them for a moment -- contemplative and full of unspoken feeling -- but Papyrus rapidly shook it off and swept the file Sans had given him into his own stack. “If you’re finished, I have more things for you to do.”

Even if he had felt like taking a proper break, Sans would have felt guilty doing so knowing that his brother was still going even after donating most of his magic and spending all his energy on keeping the company together. “Sure, Boss.”

He wordlessly took another file and retreated to the couch, doing his best to ignore the fluttering feeling in his soul that Papyrus’s words had woken in him.

* * *

The sound of something determinedly battering against the front door managed to resonate right through the house, startling both skeletons from their focus. Sans belatedly rubbed his sockets, feeling them ache from straining over the tiny print on the dossier he was reviewing. 

Papyrus was already on his feet, moving towards the disturbance. It took Sans a moment to convince his stiff bones to co-operate enough to scramble after him. “Hey, Boss, wait-!”

“If I don’t open the door fast enough, she’ll break it down,” Papyrus said, not slowing his pace. Sans had only a moment to figure out the likely culprit of such an action before Papyrus was letting Undyne in, neatly managing to side-step her forceful entry. 

“About damn time,” she barked, giving them both an appraising look before efficiently surveying the rest of the room for potential threats. Only when she was finished did she turn her full attention back to Papyrus. “You’ll be glad to know that no one managed to burn the damn building down while you were gone.”

“Thank goodness,” Papyrus replied dryly, making Undyne grin with a savage show of sharp teeth. “Anything of note to report?”

“Had another reporter trying to sneak in to your old man’s ward. Hospital security managed to catch them first, or I’d have gotten a chance to interrogate them.” She seemed displeased about that. “And there was a fight that had to be broken up in the cafeteria. I’ve already sent you the incident record. No other breaches to report.”

Her eyes flitted towards Sans, and her grin stretched further. “S’up, shorty. You look like hell.”

“Thanks,” Sans replied flatly, making her give an ugly laugh. 

“If you were any more tiny, I’d think you were made of toothpicks instead of bone. You skeletons need to eat more.” She aimed a rude poke towards Papyrus’s empty abdominal cavity, which he surprisingly tolerated without so much as a flinch. “Come on. I’m off shift now that we’re done with official business. You had food yet?”

“No,” Papyrus confessed, his posture falling into something a little more relaxed. 

“Great! We can have another lesson!” She victoriously ripped her jacket off, revealing the much more casual tank top beneath. She seemed utterly unselfconscious as she tossed the discarded garment over the nearby coat rack and marched down the corridor. 

Sans tried not to gape. He’d never seen Undyne outside of the context of their professional roles, but not only did she know exactly where the kitchen was, but she seemed weirdly comfortable about pulling random things from the cupboards and arranging them across the desk.

“Lesson?” he managed to echo weakly.

“A cooking lesson!” Undyne clarified. She jabbed her elbow in Papyrus’s direction. “Didn’t this twerp tell you? He’s my apprentice!”

“Are you really calling your CEO a ‘twerp’? Papyrus asked, although Sans thought his gruff tone was more amused than offended.

Undyne leered viciously at him. “You’re not my boss in this kitchen, punk. Now roll up your sleeves and go get your apron.”

Sans had seen hints of their camaraderie before, but never anything so blatant and...comfortable. He felt dumbfounded, watchin Papyrus roll his eyelights but obligingly peel off his blazer, so bizarrely compliant to Undyne’s aggressive demands. That wasn’t an overnight change. Sans had missed something.

“So uh. How long has that been goin’ on?” he asked, feigning casualness. Apparently it’s wasn’t wholly convincing, because Papyrus shot him a sudden hard, searching look. Undyne was too preoccupied to notice, however.

“Huh. About a year, I guess,” she mused, ear fins twitching in thought. “Maybe a bit more-”

“Undyne,” Papyrus hissed, having failed to catch her attention with his first abortive gesture, but it was too late. Sans’s expression had gone dark, his eye-lights gutting out. 

“A year, huh?” he echoed, the false cheer in his voice not quite hiding the dangerous undertones that even Undyne couldn’t miss. 

She shot Papyrus an awkwardly confused look. “Yeah, uh. But not all the time, you know. Just...whenever he’s in town, which hasn’t been all that much-”

“Sure,” Sans agreed to cut off her flustered backpedaling rather than because he was convinced. 

A year. Papyrus had been back for a year. And he’d never reached out to Sans. Not even once, while Sans’s life had been falling apart, while he’d been forced to sign away his freedom to that damn contract, when Sans needed him the most.

A _goddamn fucking year_.

“Well you kids have fun with your lesson,” Sans told them with mocking encouragement. “I think I’m gonna turn in early. It’s been a long day.”

“Sans-!”

He ignored his brother’s call, slipping into a shortcut the moment he’s past the kitchen door and stumbling into the sanctuary of his room. For good measure, he throws up a wall of blue bones across the door, even though doing so makes pain spike through his eye-socket. Spitting venomous curses under his breath, he stomped into the attached bathroom to check how the patch on his socket was faring, if only to give himself a distraction.

(A year. _A YEAR_. Hadn’t he thought of Sans at all? Hadn’t he wondered…? Hadn't he missed…?)

His face in the mirror looked haggard, but the patch still looked clean. His eye still stung, but that was his own damn fault and probably didn’t mean anything. Carefully, he peeled away the medical tape and let the patch fall free, examining the empty socket underneath. Satisfied that there were no stains or hints of leakage, he let the eye-light rekindle, scrutinising it. Was it a little darker than usual? Maybe that was just the exhaustion getting to him. He was definitely tired.

(And angry. And hurt. And resigned.

What else had he expected from his brother?)

He didn’t want to think about it anymore, and since leaving his room was currently out of the question let alone getting out of the building to make his way to Grillby’s, it would have to be his other favourite pastime for drowning out the awfulness of his life: sleeping.

At least he finally felt ready. All his emotions felt stirred up, like sludge on the bottom of a pond, and the muddy concoction of this thoughts felt like a physical weight he was being forced to carry. He barely remembered to shed his clothing for the pyjamas Papyrus had given him, already feeling numbness creeping over him.

(And maybe while he was changing he heard a quiet knocking on the door, but he’d left the light off in the room so there was no sign he was awake to hear it.)

The luxury of the bed didn’t feel like any kind of consolation, but it was hard to care-

(he didn’t _want_ to care)

-about anything as his sockets began to drift shut, too tired to watch the shadows for any creeping limbs or grasping threats. He let his mind go empty; instead, there was only--

_\--darkness_.

* * *

_Pain_. A twisting agony behind his eye-socket. Something horrifying pushing its way out from inside his skull.

_Disconnect_. His arm doesn’t feel like his own. It’s reaching up to strangle him, unnatural strength in his phalanges as the bones of his cervicals are crushed under his own grip.

_Suffocation_. He doesn’t need air, but he can’t breathe, can’t scream, can’t call for help, for Papyrus-

_Papyrus_!

The protective spectre of his brother jolted him awake, and Sans shot upward, ribs heaving painfully and his voice rasping in uneven whimpers deep in his threat. He blinked rapidly, staring uncomprehendingly at the rich red sheets, the luscious pillows, for a moment wondering if he was still dreaming. A fever-dream, perhaps; he was sweltering under the covers. His bones and clothes felt damp with a sweat that was now going cold as the last, unsettling shadow of his dream began to fade away. 

A knock sounded on the door; not for the first time, he realised belatedly. The repetitive noise must have finally jarred him from sleep. 

“Sans?”

Papyrus, of course. Sans took a moment, trying to get his thoughts back in order and his breathing calmed. He scrubbed at his face, groaning. His eye was aching again, worse than last night, and there was a steady throbbing starting in the base of his skull; the beginnings of a headache. 

“SANS!?”

“What?” Sans finally snarled back, furiously kicking away the sheets that had tangled around his legs. “I’m awake!”

There was a long pause. Sans could practically picture his brother standing on the other side of the door, phalanges twitching as he carefully chose his words. “I have duties to attend today that cannot be handled remotely. I -- _we_ \-- are needed at the office by nine.”

Sans almost scoffed at the belated inclusion. _We_. As if Sans was needed for anything. But he know about Sans’s contract and what conditions needed to be adhered to. He couldn’t expect his brother to babysit him at home every day. 

Sans briefly checked the clock on the nightstand and made a harried grunt. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

“You have five!” Papyrus barked back, sounding slightly more assertive, hesitation falling away in face of the familiar habit of nagging. “No boondoggling!”

Apparently they weren’t going to talk about last night, which was fine with Sans. He didn’t think he could manage that talk without his emotions bubbling over, which simply wouldn’t be acceptable when there was work to be done...or ever, most likely. Gaster had despised the thought of personal issues interfering with business. It was one of the reasons he’d claimed the brothers needed to be separated; they made each other weak, emotional, useless.

“Fine,” Sans huffed, achingly pushing himself out of bed. No time for a shower, then, even though he really could have used one to wash off the sweat of his night terrors. He shrugged off Papyrus’s pyjamas and kicked them to the corner of the room, scrabbling around for his own clothing. He’d forgotten to wash his one good shirt...fuckit, he’d just have to wear it again and hope no one would notice. It took him a minute to find it, finally managing to unearth it from under the bed, but as he brought it up to pull on he suddenly realised it was streaked with prominent black marks. The fluid from his socket must have stained it in the lab. He thumbed the mark, wondering if he’d be able to wash it later to preserve the shirt, only to realise that inky smear wasn’t old and dry. 

It was wet. Fresh.

“What the fuck?” he murmured, staring down at his hand. There was more of it on him then there was on the shirt, coating his palm and seeping into his phalanges. For a moment he was struck by wordless horror, thinking the blackness was leaking from between his bones before belatedly realising he’d just scrubbed at his face with the same hand. He staggered into the bathroom, lunging for the mirror, and there he could finally see the fresh mess now dripping from his socket. Just like yesterday, black, unfathomable residue was running down his face while pain thrummed persistently from somewhere deep in his skull.

But...it was harmless, right? All of the tests had said so. There must just have been a little left over from yesterday that had made its way out while he slept. That seemed the most reasonable explanation...and the most optimistic. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to consider what the alternatives might be. 

“SANS! ARE YOU DONE?”

Papyrus’s shout make him startle, nearly knocking his face against the mirror from how closely he was leaning against it to inspect himself. He swore softly under his breath. 

“Just give me a minute!” Sans yelled back irately, his projected annoyance thankfully masking his anxiety. He carefully put a hand to his face, hissing in displeasure as it came away dark and sticky. Where the hell was this shit coming from?

He definitely had to clean it off before Papyrus saw it. He started the sink running, taking a moment to review his ghastly reflection and the thick swaths of residue that had poured down his cheeks like an over-enthusiastic pierrot's tear stains before carefully sluicing it away with his fingers. He couldn’t risk getting it on any of the towels -- he had no idea how badly it stained...shit, he was going to have to check the bed to make sure he hadn’t left anything on the pillows. He’d probably have to find a place to burn it. At least his brother was used to Sans’s bedding mysteriously disappearing over time. 

He scraped it off as quickly as possible, mindful of his impatient brother still banging on the bedroom door. The inky substance ran down the sink in dramatic swirls, and diluted by the water it actually proved to be a deep indigo colour rather than pure black. The tint of perseverance, his mind supplied absently. The colour of his father’s magic. The sight of it made him uneasy, and he made sure to scrub every trace of it from the sink as well as from his face. 

He carefully checked his eye-sockets again. His eyelights seemed fine; sharp and distinct, though perhaps not as bright as usual. His vision checked out too. He tried looking a little deeper, but the darkness in his skull made it impossible to tell what was just shadow and what might be a lurking smear of unsightly fluid. He’d have to keep an eye on that to make sure nothing else came out during the day. Maybe he could ask Alphys about it later, and find a way to bribe her into silence. 

“SANS! WE ARE GOING TO BE LATE!”

He heaved a deep, long suffering sigh. “I’m coming already!”


	13. Chapter 13

Undyne was waiting for them by the car, her bright hair tied back in a utilitarian braid instead of its usual ponytail. Sans had a faint recollection of someone (Alphys?) mentioning she only did that on the days she was expecting trouble. As he and Papyrus approached, she glanced past the taller skeleton to give Sans a sharp, searching look, but he gave her only his most inscrutable skeletal sneer. He was pretty sure she wasn’t invested enough in him to bring up their exchange last night, and he definitely didn’t want to give her any reason to.

“Is everything ready?” Papyrus asked her, sliding into the back seat as she held the door for him.

The question made her grin, broad shoulders snapping straight with an almost military precision. She’d been in the Royal Guard once, Sans remembered, but apparently she’d found it _boring_. The King was powerful and well-protected enough that humans weren’t dumb enough to risk an assassination attempt. Instead they’d turned to easier targets: the monsters who were trying to eke out an existence in the human cities and the ones who dared compete with human industries.

“Yes sir,” she replied, not even a hint of the fondly commanding attitude she’d displayed last night. Both she and Papyrus fell right back into their professional roles without a hitch. Sans cynically wondered if it was because both of them were the type to put their work above everything else, or if it was just because they’d had plenty of practice at it.

(A year. A whole _YEAR_.)

Sans gave her a wide berth to enter from the other side of the car, making a point of opening his own door instead of being waited upon. Undyne merely scoffed at him, slamming Papyrus’s door before sliding confidently into the front.

“Nice shirt you got there, shorty.”

With his only good shirt ruined, Sans had been forced to resort to one of his few back-ups; a bright red shirt with the words “This shirt is blue (if you run fast enough)” on it. It had been worth it to see Papyrus’s brow furrow in bewildered consternation before the inevitable disappointed scowl.

He wasn’t really in the mood to engage with her, but their verbal sparring was enough of a habit that his mouth operated mostly on autopilot. “Geeze, fish-breath, if I’d known you were driving I’d just have thrown myself from the top of the building. Better chance of survival that way.”

“HAH,” she gloated, unoffended. “Can’t help it if my driving’s too badass for your delicate sensibilities. Buckle up, bonehead!”

“Ugh,” Sans groaned, complying only because he’d had the unfortunate experience of being in a car with Undyne before. He’d barely secured himself before she was revving the engine and screeching out of the parking bay, tearing through the street like they were part of a ridiculous human action movie.

Papyrus seemed unperturbed by her antics. It was probably yet another thing he’d become familiar with in the _whole damn year_ he’d been back. Sans watched his brother calmly leafing through the file on his lap, staying admirably balanced whenever Undyne took an especially sharp turn, and despite his intention to maintain a stoic, unfriendly silence Sans had never been good at keeping control of his mouth.

“So are ya gonna tell me what the hell is going down this morning, or you just gonna leave me in the dark like always?” he asked snidely, though whether it was the sharpness of his tone or the unexpected interruption that made Papyrus flinch, he wasn’t sure.

“My apologies,” Papyrus said, and as gruff as he sounded, Sans thought he could detect a hint of actual contrition there. “I overlooked the need to brief you as you’ve already been assisting me with the issue. Today we’re attending to _these_.”

He tilted the file so Sans could see its contents. Inside were all the termination forms Papyrus had him fill in the day before.

“We’re taking out the garbage!” Undyne enthused from the front seat, glancing dangerously over her shoulder as she jerked the car into another lane to overtake the person in front of her.

Sans narrowed his sockets suspiciously. “You don’t need to be there in person for that, do ya?”

Occasionally a difficult employee might need to be escorted from the building by one of Undyne’s guards, but that didn’t require the Head of Security or the CEO himself to get involved.

“In this instance, I wish to interview anyone with a proven history of misdeeds before allowing them to leave our jurisdiction. It’s possible one of them may have some involvement with the incident on Level 66.”

Sans’s browbones shot up incredulously. “So, what? You think it was internal sabotage?”

“There’s been no evidence to suggest any infiltration or influence from the outside,” Papyrus said sharply. “And since our father is not known for errors in his work, I’m more inclined to believe it was a deliberate act instead of a mere accident.”

Papyrus’s glare tried to pin him down, but Sans had already dropped his gaze, shrugging carelessly. “Sure, whatever you say, Boss.”

It wasn’t that he disagreed with Papyrus. Sabotage was still the most likely answer – as much as he hated his father, it was difficult to imagine him making the kind of catastrophic mistake that would put himself into a coma.

But Sans had already _seen_ the most likely suspect – the strange monster in the labs – and that Papyrus was chasing other, more inane leads instead of that one was both frustrating and painful.

_But what else is new?_ Sans thought to himself derisively.

* * *

There were fresh piles of new paperwork on the reception desk outside Papyrus’s office – his desk now, Sans supposed. A number of his requests for documentation to research the company projects had finally been answered. There was an especially large folder from Toriel, with a pink post-it note clipped to the front of it suggesting that if he wanted a more _staple_ relationship, he should come down and join her for lunch some time soon. He snickered over it as he sat and pretended not to be eavesdropping as Papyrus gave Undyne instructions on who to _escort_ to his office first.

Sans remembered the name; it was the guy who’d been selling company secrets to one of their rivals. He almost felt sorry for the poor sap as Undyne marched towards the elevator with a look of vindictive delight on her face.

He was expecting Papyrus to vanish into his office immediately after, but instead, his brother came to loom over his workstation. Instead of issuing another curt order, however, Papyrus merely _hovered_ , not even demanding Sans’s attention when he feigned interest in his files, pretending not to notice his brother’s presence. He wondered how long Papyrus might have waffled trying to figure out whatever it was he wanted to say, but the awkward moment had stretched long enough that Sans decided to put them both out of their misery.

“You need somethin’, Boss?” he asked, with just enough emphasis on the last word to snap Papyrus back to himself.

The taller skeleton straightened his jacket imperiously, giving Sans an uncomfortably thorough inspection. “Did you sleep last night?”

Sans blinked, having expected something more along the lines of a query about his progress. Realisation made him hunch down defensively. After inspecting every inch of his skull for any traces of the black liquid, he was well aware that the shadows under his sockets were especially dark this morning, lines of haggard stress leaving their mark. “What’s it to you?”

Papyrus’s expression darkened. “Sans…”

“ _Fine_. I slept,” Sans retorted, forcing himself to meet his brother’s gaze. Papyrus had always been uncannily good at seeing through Sans’s lies, or even the careful half-truths he preferred to tell, but in this case it was technically true. As long as Papyrus didn’t ask _how much_ , Sans was golden.

“How is your eye?”

The socket in question twinged in both pain and irritation. He turned away, hoping Papyrus wouldn’t notice. “It’s _fine_. I’m _fine_. Everything is goddamn _fine_.”

His tone was bordering on insubordination, the air charged with discontent and resentment. Normally Sans had a much better control over his magic and its subtle, influencing properties but right now he was tired…and so was Papyrus. Not all the frustration in the air belonged to Sans.

“I’m not yet convinced that you’ve fully recovered from our expedition. If it’s interfering with your duties-”

“You can write me up another fucking penalty notice and send me back down to the labs,” Sans snarled, his patience snapping. “Then you can go back to pretending I don’t exist!”

Papyrus reeled from the unexpected, personal accusation. “I wasn’t implying-!”

“Then _don’t_. Don’t act like you give a shit when it’s a _whole fucking year_ too late to mean anything.”

Papyrus’s expression clouded over into something that might have been terrifying if Sans hadn’t been too angry and reckless to care. “We’re not having this conversation now.”

“No, we’re not,” Sans sneered venomously, making a point of turning away. “There’s not a damn thing you could say that would be worth listening to anyway.”

Being dismissed, ignored, was usually the final, fatal trigger for Papyrus’s temper. Sans was braced for the inevitable explosion, expecting Papyrus to finally kick him out, to banish him back down to the lower levels, and for a moment there was no sound except the harsh, unnecessary breath of Papyrus drawing air through his rib-cage in preparation.

But the explosion never came. After a terse, dangerous moment, Papyrus simply turned and walked away, slamming the door to his office behind him.

_Fucker_ , Sans thought furiously, blinking back the pricking itch of tears threatening to well up in his sockets. He told himself it was just the pain making his eyes water.

* * *

 

Papyrus’s office was soundproofed, so Sans had no way of knowing what was happening behind the door. A part of him vindictively imagined Papyrus throwing a temper-tantrum the way he had when he’d been younger. Though his rebellious teenage phase had lasted only briefly, Sans could still remember Papyrus’s unmodulated screeching resonating through Gaster’s empty mansion. Even as an adult, Papyrus was prone to lashing out with a destructive precision that Sans had always been quietly anxious about, but Papyrus had never aimed his magic at people; only at expensive but ultimately replaceable things.

Though he doubted his brother had time to indulge in a proper hissy fit when he was expected to conduct an interrogation. Undyne didn’t take more than fifteen minutes to return, accompanied by the gaunt, blond-haired human whose portrait had been on the termination file Sans had processed. The poor schmuck didn’t seem to have any idea what he was in for. He seemed smug, even eager to follow in Undyne’s wake as she lead him into the CEO’s office.

As for Sans, he was well-practiced at swallowing down all his simmering resentment and burying himself in work. Toriel’s files kept him preoccupied for the better part of an hour, her neat annotations pointing out half a dozen aberrations in the personnel files that had somehow been overlooked. False entries with absent documentation, each with an obscure typography reference in the name. Lora Bookman. Oswald Palatino. Arial Times.

It was both ridiculous and kind of brilliant. There probably wasn’t a single person in the company who would attribute such blatant and obvious forging to their genius CEO, but Sans had known Gaster for a lifetime and while he didn’t have Sans’s appreciation for puns he did have his own obscure sense of humor that tended to come out at inopportune times. Sans didn’t doubt for a moment where all the false entries had come from.

But the real question was _why_. Why was Gaster manipulating his own company’s records? What was he using these pretend personnel for? It obviously had something to do with some of the more questionable projects that had been going on during Gaster’s tenure. Sans already knew Gaster had used the names to forge some of the reports. He just had to figure out what the purpose was.

He was jolted from his investigation by Papyrus’s door slamming forcefully open, breaking his concentration. Undyne marched out first, half-dragging half-supporting the blond human who no longer looked even the smallest bit smug. In fact, he looked terrible; his face was pale and blotchy with uneven patches of red, his hair was mussed and tie askew, and there was a haunted look in his empty eyes.

Undyne caught Sans peeking and gave an expressive roll of her single eye, but since there was nothing self-congratulatory in her expression Sans guessed the human must not have had any information relevant to the Level 66 accident. He’d obviously just had the chastisement of his life, and was practically a broken man because of it.

It reminded Sans that he could just have easily been on the receiving end of such a reprimand, but…Papyrus had walked away instead.

_Because he knew he was wrong_ , a small, bitter voice grumbled in his subconscious, but Sans knew it wasn’t that simple, and even if Papyrus felt guilty, there really wasn’t any excuse for Sans to have spoken to him the way he had.

He shrugged the thoughts away. It didn’t matter. They weren’t _having this conversation now_ , as Papyrus had put it. Not while there was work to be done.

As Sans worked on tracking each instance of false names through the project documentation, trying to find a discernable pattern, Undyne returned periodically with new victims to face Papyrus’s interrogation. Not all of them came quietly. One, a large, lizard-like monster with shoulders almost as broad as Sans was tall, was escorted by additional guards on each side, ensuring he had no escape as he was marched into Papyrus’s office. A meek-looking whimsun actually panicked on the threshold and tried to flee, making it halfway to the elevator before Undyne’s green magic brought them up short. She berated them for their cowardice whilst simultaneously trying to give them a bracing (if terrifying) pep talk as she dragged them back to their fate.

Even if the interruptions were moderately entertaining, Sans ended up absorbed almost entirely in his work. Here, at least, was a tangible problem he could solve; not like whatever had happened on Level 66 or his turbulent relationship with Papyrus. He was already starting to tease out the first variables of the solution. The false employees had very _non-false_ wages being processed for them, so there was some kind of misappropriation of funds occurring, but that couldn’t be the whole answer. Gaster’s company was, without question, the most profitable of any monster business on the surface. His net worth was even greater than the King’s, especially if one accounted for his investments in human money and infrastructure, which few monsters managed to gain. The total wages of a half-dozen fake employees was a positively trivial amount of money for Gaster, so Sans was pretty sure that it was either a false lead, or one that simply existed to help mask the existence of the false records in the first place by making them seem slightly more real. Even if that money ended up misplaced or disposed of, Gaster and the company could easily soak the loss without raising any suspicions.

He mentally crossed ‘money’ off the list of possible motivations, leaving his short list of possibilities even shorter. From what he knew of Gaster, the most likely reasons were (in order of plausibility) science, convenience, personal gain, revenge and boredom. It would end up being a particularly unfunny joke if it ended up being the last option, but Sans wouldn’t wholly put it past Gaster either. It might all be some kind of elaborate final test for Papyrus; a puzzle for him to figure out to prove his worth in the company. It was a lot of time to waste for such a trivial reason, but Gaster did always enjoy seeing proof of a theory put into practice. Toying with people, and especially his sons, was just another interesting experiment in his eyes.

“Ugh,” he sighed wearily. His skull dropped down to rest against the top of his (only slightly smaller) stack of files, only now registering that the low ache in the back of his skull that had dogged him since waking up was still very much present and slightly sharper for having been ignored so long. His eye was throbbing too, and he discretely swiped his phalange along the bottom rim to ensure that nothing was leaking from it. His finger came away with a few dried flecks of black, but no new secretions.

Thankfully, neither Undyne nor any soon-to-be-terminated employees were around. The office was quiet. Peaceful. Positively serene. Absent of any witnesses should he decide to keep his head pillowed on the surprisingly comfy files for a while.

“Damn,” he muttered, feeling the nearly intolerable weight of keeping his sockets open. His sleeping schedule had been much more haphazard than usual, with none of his daytime naps to supplement his disrupted nights. He cast a covert glance at Papyrus’s closed door, wondering whether he dared to risk it even after being warned about his bad habits.

His skewed sense of reasoning insidiously reminded him that Papyrus was already pissed at him anyway, so it couldn’t really get much worse than it already was. If nothing else, Sans could always blame the ache in his eye and Papyrus might be sympathetic enough to let him off.

(He had been concerned, earlier. Or at least that was probably what he’d been trying to express, albeit poorly.)

“Hnn,” he groaned, forcibly banishing the memory of Papyrus’s evaluating stare, the odd softness in his eyelights, the memory of fingers stroking his skull. None of it mattered, none of it meant anything, and if his brother ended up being disappointed in Sans again, well, it wouldn’t be the first time.


	14. Chapter 14

**_BLEEP_ **

Sans jerked at the loud, jarring sound, his skull reflexively snapping backwards and immediately smacking into something hard and unyielding.

“Ow, fuck!”

He hissed in pain, reaching back to rub at the tender bone, anxiously checking for cracks. There weren’t any, thank god, but now his head was pounding with an entirely new kind of pain that promised to make his life miserable for the rest of the afternoon.

“Shiiiiiit…” he wheezed, blinking rapidly to clear his pain-fogged vision. He was perfectly comfortable sleeping through the typical din of office chatter, and even the much more rowdy background rabble at Grillby’s, but Papyrus’s office was still full of new, unfamiliar sounds that worked better than any alarm clock. It didn’t help that being around Papyrus in general kept him on edge and prone to startling.

Remembering his last rude awakening, he reached blindly for the phone, but his fumbling hand found…nothing. No phone. No desk. No stacks of paperwork. Bewildered, he scrubbed at his sockets to properly take in his surroundings and found himself no longer at the reception desk and not even on the top floor.

He was in the elevator.

“What-” he gaped, looking back and forth in stupefaction. He was on the ground, propped up against the wall nearest the control panel, alone, and without any idea of how he might have ended up there. “-the fuck?”

Belatedly he thought to check the floor indicator. The elevator was in motion, currently passing between floors seven and eight, but if it had been rising since the noise had woken him up he could have come from the ground floor or even one of the basement carparks.

What the hell?

He’d been working, right? And…taking a break? Maybe he’d woken up and gone to run some sort of errand in a half-asleep daze? He rubbed the tender spot where his skull had cracked against the wall, digging through his murky memories of the day but coming up with nothing to enlighten him. Thoroughly disconcerted, he used the safety railing to pull himself back to his feet, freezing when the movement jostled the mild pressure he’d barely noticed welling up inside his socket and caused something wet to slide down his cheekbone.

“No, fuck, not now-!” he snarled, hand snapping up to catch the seeping liquid. As expected, when he pulled his hand away, his fingers were stained a dark indigo. “Worst fucking timing.”

He glanced at the control panel. The elevator was heading back for the top floor. Feeling a stab of dismay, he immediately smacked the buttons for several other floors, willing the damn elevator to spit him out anywhere else so he could find someplace private to clean himself up before Papyrus could see him, but aggravatingly the elevator must have been programmed in order of button priority, not by closest floor, because it stubbornly ignored every other request and kept right on going.

“Damnit!”

Of course there was nowhere to hide in the elevator, and Sans had nothing in his pockets to blot away the mess that was still stubbornly dripping from his socket. He was barely managing to keep it from staining the pristine tile beneath him as the elevator finally reached its destination and slid to a smooth stop with a cheerful chime.

**_DING!_ **

The door slid open. Sans held his breath, nervously peering out into the entryway, and found it mercifully empty. There was no one at his desk, and Papyrus’s door was closed. Uttering a brief, grateful epithet under his breath, Sans furtively scuttled from the elevator and made for the safety of the bathroom.

It was a room that had probably never seen any use for its actual purpose. Monsters didn’t need bathrooms, after all; it was purely a relic of architecture that had been built to accommodate its expected human owners before Gaster had managed to secure ownership of the building for himself. Breathing a sigh of relief, staggered forward and bowed his head to help the dark liquid drain more quickly from his skull.

Damnit, he really needed to talk to Alphys about this. Even if it wasn’t toxic, her tests might have turned up something else about what it was or why it was happening. Unfortunately monster biology wasn’t really her area of expertise, or his own. Gaster was the real expert in that particular field, but even if his old man had been up and walking around, Sans would rather have had sludge pouring out of his sockets permanently than ask the bastard for help.

Grimly, he prodded around the rim of his socket, making sure no more of the blackness was ready to seep out. He wondered if there was any connection between the fluid and his odd awakening in the elevator. Maybe he’d shaken more of it loose after knocking his skull? He’d have to watch out for that if he didn’t want Papyrus noticing.

That was the unfortunate consequence of having a brother who was also his boss, Sans thought wearily. If he hadn’t been so pissed at Papyrus, his gestures of concern might have been tolerable, even gratifying, but where Sans’s health was concerned he knew his brother had a tendency to escalate from protective to controlling. Papyrus being CEO and the owner of Sans’s contract ensured that Sans would have no say in whatever measures Papyrus thought was ‘necessary’ to take care of him. He was already living in Papyrus’s home and working directly under him for most of the day. It wouldn’t take much for him to lose the last few liberties he still had left.

He pulled back from the sink, examining himself in the mirror and scowling in consternation as he found a few new, dark spots on the shoulder of his shirt where he hadn’t managed to catch the dripping fluid. Hastily scrubbing them with water lightened the stains, but didn’t remove them entirely, and knowing Papyrus his sharp eyes would notice the new imperfections. Sans needed something to cover it up, but the obligations of his contract kept him restricted to the building during work hours. There was only one feasible solution, and he wasn’t terribly happy to consider it.

After drying his shirt under the hand dryer and making sure he hadn’t left any gruesome stains for the janitorial staff to complain about, Sans made sure Papyrus’s door was still closed and successfully made it back to the safety of his desk. Everything was as he’d left it, including his phone which had been left next to the keyboard along with his access card. He picked them both up, staring especially hard at the latter, wondering how the hell he’d managed to work the elevator without it. Unfortunately he didn’t have any time to think about it as Papyrus’s door suddenly burst open and Sans was forced to scramble to cover up his shirt and feign interest in his folders.

“Sans!” Papyrus stomped over, already sounding irritated. “I’ve been calling your intercom for five minutes. Why haven’t you been-!?”

As his shadow fell over Sans’s desk, Papyrus’s irate demand cut off abruptly. Sans looked up warily, feeling an anxious sweat condensing on his skull, but hopefully if he kept his expression as deferential as possible Papyrus wouldn’t ask about why Sans was suddenly wearing his suit jacket again.

“Sorry, Boss. I musta been caught up in what I was doin’,” he offered meekly, resisting the urge to fidget with the sleeves. Tailored to suit Papyrus’s much longer arms, they bunched around Sans’s wrists, making him feel faintly ridiculous.

Maybe Papyrus thought so too, because for a long moment he didn’t say anything, only staring at Sans with an unusually intense expression. Sans clutched the jacket closer, hoping the stains near his collar were properly hidden. Discomforted, he prompted, “You need something, Boss?”

Papyrus’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click, and he brusquely straightening his posture. “Yes. In my office. Now.”

Despite how curt the words were, Papyrus no longer sounded nearly as angry. Sans wondered what had defused him so quickly, but swiftly shrugged it off to follow his brother into the office. Given the intensity of the earlier interrogations, he might have expected to see some broken furniture or an ominous jar of dust on the desk, but everything looked as pristine as it had the day before. He supposed he should have given his brother and Undyne some more credit.

“Close the door,” Papyrus barked as Sans came through, giving the smaller skeleton pause. That meant whatever Papyrus wanted was either confidential or likely to take a while, neither of which boded well. Sans swallowed down a knot of anxiety, pushing the door shut behind him and coming to stand in front of Papyrus’s desk.

For an uncomfortably long moment, Papyrus didn’t say anything. His long phalanges tapped mindlessly on the surface of the table in an impatient rhythm, but whatever it was he needed to express seemed to be giving him some trouble. Finally, with an almost disgusted scoff, he pulled out a single sheaf of paper and slid it across the desk towards Sans.

Sans stared at it. The distinctive yellow of the paper was a shade Sans was unpleasantly familiar with. He’d earned more than his fair share of company policy violation notices, especially over the last year. He glanced back at Papyrus, his expression torn between incredulous and outraged. “Are you shitting me?”

“Unfortunately not,” Papyrus grumbled, exhaling tiredly through his fangs. “But give me more credit, Sans. Though some incidents of your current behavior have been undesirable, circumstances compel me to be lenient with you. This notice came from HMR, not from me.”

Cautiously, Sans picked up the paper. As his eye-lights scanned its contents, his expression went rigid, his pupils shrinking to near-invisible pin-pricks of light. Heedless of his brother’s sudden change in expression, Papyrus explained, “Some idiot on Undyne’s team took it upon themself to lodge a complaint about your actions on our excursion to Level 66. Unfortunately, by the time Undyne and I discovered it, it was too late for me to remove it from the system without attracting attention. I’m sure you understand we need to avoid accusations of nepotism where possible-Sans?”

Sans blinked numbly, struggling to react to his brother’s voice. “Hm?”

Papyrus was scrutinising Sans closely, his expression stern but calm. “Due to the nature of the complaint, I’m required to give you a verbal warning. Hopefully this will be the only time I need to remind you not to aim C-class magical weapons at company personnel.”

When he put it like that, it sounded ridiculous – like something to laugh about at Grillby’s, not something that made his soul feel like a knot of ice in his chest. “Yes, Boss.”

Papyrus’s sockets narrowed as he finally started to register some hint of dissonance between his brother’s posture and strained tone. “Sans. You know it’s only company policy. The paperwork has already been processed and as far as I’m concerned, the matter is closed.”

“Yes, Boss.” Papyrus’s air of finality should have reassured him, but Sans couldn’t stop the small tremor in his fingers that made the paper crinkle noisily in his hand. He quickly shoved it in his pocket, but it was too late for Papyrus not to have seen.

Papyrus’s skull tilted quizzically, and he leaned forward as if to make a move towards Sans. “What-?”

“I’m gonna get back to work,” Sans blurted, rapidly backing away. He didn’t need this right now. It was just one too many pressures in his shitstorm of a week, and he wasn’t prepared to deal with it or with Papyrus’s questions. His sudden movement seemed to give Papyrus pause, giving Sans a chance to make his escape, fleeing the office and clumsily shoving the door closed behind him.

His chest felt tight. He had to remind himself that skeletons didn’t need to breathe as he took a few cautious steps back towards his desk. One step. Two step. He was fine. He was-

-Nope, he was not fine.

It was inexplicably fortunate that he’d already had reason to become acquainted with the bathroom, saving him from a few additional seconds of orienting himself so he could lunge straight for the sink. He barely made it before heaving up a sour mouthful of acrid bile – his body’s wretched and pitiful response to a threat that neither magic or logic could respond to. It bubbled on the porcelain like a carbonated drink, agitated but ultimately harmless. Thankfully nothing dark had come up with it this time. It was purely his own magic, dark red with hints of aggressive yellow.

The door swung open behind him. “Sans?”

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath, quickly turning on the faucet to wash the disgusting mess down the drain. It wouldn’t be the first time his brother had caught him on the tail-end of a panic attack. His voice cracked as he said, “Go away. I’m fine.”

Papyrus stopped just past the doorway, crossing his arms. The expression in his face was distinctly unimpressed. “You’re normally a much better liar than that, so I would hazard a guess that you are not.”

That startled a choked, uneven laugh out of Sans, not expecting Papyrus to be so frank about it. “Just gimme a few minutes and I’ll get back to work.”

Papyrus ignored him, stepping closer. Sans would have backed up, but cornered against the sinks there was nowhere for him to go. The best he could do was keep his face averted, splashing some of the water on his face to scrub bile from his chin.

“Is it your injury?” Papyrus asked, trying to angle so he could catch Sans’s reflection in the mirror. “I told you to let me know immediately if you weren’t feeling well.”

“It’s not that,” Sans grunted, although as if to make a liar of him, his socket gave an aggravated twinge. He lifted his head if only to make sure nothing was trying to leak out of it again, which gave him an unobstructed view of Papyrus’s own conflicted reflection.

“Then was it because I had to discipline you?” Papyrus tried, his voice softer and less scornful than Sans would have expected. The odd gentleness didn’t prevent Sans from wincing, and it annoyed Sans that his brother was so perceptive. Being in that office, surrounded by so many other memories of being reprimanded for his inadequacies and failures…well, it certainly hadn’t helped, and some of those incidents had been enough to prompt panic attacks in the past, so he couldn’t fault Papyrus for the assumption even if it wasn’t entirely on the mark.

“No. You were…it wasn’t that.”

A pair of hands came down on Sans’s shoulders, clutching tightly as if on the verge of shaking the answer out of him. “Then  _what_?”

Sans sighed deeply, too exhausted and off-balance to think of an evasion that Papyrus might be willing to accept. He should probably know, in any case. It was a potential risk, now – a scandal they would have to watch out for.

“That wasn’t C-class magic,” Sans told him, shoulders sagging heavily under Papyrus’s grip. “It was D-class.”

He gave that announcement a moment to sink in. It might even have taken Papyrus that long to realise what he meant, since the magical classifications wasn’t generally used by monsters. It was a human system; a crude oversimplification of magic to help them identify what kind of magic they felt monsters were entitled to, and what needed to be restricted for the comfort of humanity.

A-class was ambient magic. It was the innate magic that simply existed in a monster’s natural state. It was the heat given off by Grillby’s flames and the levitation that allowed a Tsunderplane to float and the pull that held Sans’s bones together. Ambient magic was freely permitted if only because there was no real means of restricting it without compromising a monster’s health.

B-class was for bullet-type magic. The King had fought long and hard to keep restrictions on bullet magic as minimal as possible, since it was an integral part of monster traditions and a means of self-expression. It also gave monsters their sole means of self-defence in the case of a human threat, and it was only grudgingly allowed because even in a battle between the strongest monster and the weakest human child, it would still take several passes of bullets to truly do lasting harm. Bullet magic was more of a deterrent to try and end a fight by forcing the opponent to flee or give up than a true weapon.

C-class magic had two categories: color magic and magical constructs. Sans’s estimation of human ingenuity had plummeted sharply when he’d learned that humans had simply smushed together these two disparate and unique fields of magic to make them conform to their inane alphabetical naming convention, but at least they seemed to recognise that both types could be dangerous in the hands of a monster who knew what they were doing. C-type magic required a certification license to be used, which was one of the unfortunate concessions the King had been forced to make to appease the humans and assuage their fears. Both Sans and Papyrus had one for their dark blue gravity magic, and he knew Undyne had one for her green magic. It didn’t escape him that all the monsters he knew of who’d gained their certification had abilities that were relatively harmless – ones that slowed or inconvenienced an opponent rather than harming them.

Licenses for magical constructs were especially rare, simply because finding a justification for their use was apparently very difficult to approve to the certification board. In fact, the only person Sans knew who had actually gained one was Gaster for his floating hands. Constructs were a much more complicated and demanding type of magic than bullets, and didn’t adhere to the same limitations. A magical bullet could only output damage relative to its size. A construct carried a measure of both instinct and intent from its creator, giving them a limited scope of intelligence and a much greater capacity to do harm. Gaster could, for instance, order one of his floating hands to strangle someone, though Sans imagined that had been one of the restrictions he’d have had to agree to in order to gain his certification.

It was easy to imagine why someone might have mistaken his Blaster for a C-type construct, and Sans was appallingly lucky that they had done so, because there was one last class of magic that was so rare and taboo that most monsters hadn’t even encountered it.

D-class magic. Not many monsters could even use it because it required a focused intent that was an anathema to the love and compassion monsters were meant to be made of. A lot of monsters had mistaken assumptions about what the ‘D’ actually stood for - dangerous, deadly, destructive - but the accurate classification was  _determination_ magic. It was a magic powerful enough to overcome the human’s most powerful soul trait, and therefore it was the kind of power they feared the most.

D-class magic wasn’t simply banned; it had been eliminated. Every monster with the potential had been culled at the end of the war in order to broke a peace treaty the humans would be willing to accept. Every scrap of knowledge about it had been deliberately destroyed, and for most monsters it was nothing but a dark myth with no basis in reality.

But Gaster had always said that knowledge could never be destroyed; it could only be obscured, hidden, waiting for rediscovery. It had taken him years, and a lot of trial and error, but eventually he had found the means to use that lost power, and better still, how to forcibly awaken it in others.

“Why do you have D-class magic?” Papyrus asked. Somehow, it was more alarming that Sans couldn’t read his tone at all. Was it shock that made his voice sound so flat, or was it something else?

“That’s…complicated,” Sans hedged, looking down. Papyrus’s inscrutable expression was making him uncomfortable. “I’m lucky that whoever submitted that report didn’t know what they were seeing, but if anyone else looks at that report too closely we might have problems.”

Someone inevitably would, because Gaster had no shortage of enemies and there was no better time to strike then now, while the stability of the company was in question and Papyrus hadn’t properly established himself. Anyone catching a whiff of that report would sense a potential scandal, and it wouldn’t take too much digging to find out that Sans didn’t own any proper certification for the blaster and from there the situation could spiral right out of control.

“It’d probably be better for you to kick me back to the labs,” Sans told Papyrus quietly, staring at the way his fingers splayed over the rim of the sink. His bones were a few shades darker than the porcelain, dirty grey, with small cracks and old scars across the phalanges. “If I’m not close to you, they’ll realise I’m not anyone worth bothering with, and even if something happens it won’t damage your reputation if you get rid of me first.”

It was the kind of ruthless decision that should have been easy for Papyrus to make. It was the decision  _Gaster_ had made, and Papyrus was supposed to be his heir, to obey his father’s will, but-

“No,” Papyrus said without even a hint of hesitation. “Out of the question.”

The blunt refusal surprised Sans, but if he thought about it, Papyrus was likely just being stubborn rather than sentimental. He didn’t like changing the order of things once he’d made a decision.

“It’s better this way,” Sans insisted with a hint of bitter amusement. “Shouldn’t be hard for you to go back to ignoring me for another ye-”

A hard, bony hand circled around Sans’s cervical vertebrae, cutting his snide remark off with an embarrassing squeak. Papyrus’s grip was tight enough to send warning shivers down his spine even if there was no real intent of harm behind it.

“I know you’re angry with me, Sans,” Papyrus said softly, dangerously, “And that is your right, but you are mistaken in your belief that my absence was a matter of  _choice_.”

It was a good thing skeletons didn’t need to breathe, because even if Papyrus’s hold was shockingly careful not to put too much pressure on the bone, Sans felt frozen, breathless. He had so many questions, but every single one was locked up beneath the hand on his throat.

“Now that I have the means to correct it, I will not allow us to be separated again. Not by you, and not by  _him_. Remember that.”

Papyrus let go, and only Sans’s tight grip on the sink kept his knees from buckling under him. He turned around, but Papyrus was already moving away, heading for the door.

“I will take care of it. All you need to concern yourself with is the instructions I give you, so refresh yourself and return to work. I want an update on your findings by the end of the day.”

Sans watched him leave, entirely at a loss for words. He felt shaken but…cleansed, in some strange way. Like Papyrus’s words had ripped out something ugly that had taken root in his soul. He also should have been more concerned by the invisible imprint Papyrus’s hand had left on his neck, but bizarrely it made him feel…

Safe. Wanted. Like Papyrus considered him worthwhile to keep around. For several minutes after his brother left, Sans did nothing but touch gently where Papyrus’s fingers had rested, finding a strange comfort in the claim they had implied.


End file.
